Kamala Harris faces plagiarism allegations over her 2007 congressional testimony, with 80% of her text reportedly identical to a former colleague’s
NEWSWEEK
Vice President Kamala Harris has been accused of plagiarizing portions of a 2007 congressional testimony from a Republican district attorney, according to a report by The Washington Free Beacon.
Newsweek conducted an independent review of the allegations and confirmed The Washington Free Beacon’s findings. Most of Harris’ 1,500-word testimony was copied from a statement by Paul Logli, the district attorney of Winnebago County, Illinois, with only minor additions and changes.
In April 2007, Harris, then-district attorney of San Francisco, testified before the House Judiciary Committee in support of the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act, a bill aimed to offer student loan repayment to state and local prosecutors to help retain legal talent.
In a written statement, she said that many prosecutors, burdened by law school debt, leave for better-paying jobs in the private sector after a few years. This has left district attorneys’ offices short-staffed, forcing inexperienced attorneys to take on complex cases.
While Harris’ statement was concise and pragmatic, 80 percent of it closely matched Logli’s testimony, which he delivered to the Senate Judiciary Committee two months earlier on the same issue. The two statements shared similar language, structure, and even the same typographical errors.
Our review confirms the findings reported by The Washington Free Beacon. After comparing both documents, we found that nearly 1,200 of the 1,500 words in Harris’ written statement were copied from Logli’s testimony, including entire paragraphs advocating for student loan relief to retain experienced prosecutors in public service.
“There are numerous criminal cases that are particularly difficult because of the dynamics involved,” Harris said—a statement nearly identical to Logli’s testimony. Both statements argued that student loan forgiveness was crucial for keeping experienced prosecutors in public service, citing the same data and making the same points in the same order.
Logli, a Republican, submitted his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in February 2007, while Harris delivered hers to the House Judiciary Committee in April of that year. Despite being presented to different chambers of Congress, the testimonies were strikingly similar. Harris’ statement contained only a few additional paragraphs, which did little to disguise the broader similarities.
Paul Logli, who retired in 2021, has not publicly commented on the matter. Newsweek reached out to the Harris campaign for a response to the plagiarism allegations.
The Washington Free Beacon also highlighted a report on human trafficking during Harris’ time as California attorney general, where she included a case study that was later revealed to be fictional. The case, which described a young woman forced into prostitution and rescued by law enforcement, was sourced from the Polaris Project, a nonprofit that runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
However, Harris presented the story as if it had occurred in California, while the original account was a fictionalized example from Washington, D.C., created for illustrative purposes. Additionally, the report found that Harris had copied a paragraph directly from Wikipedia without proper attribution.
Other plagiarism accusations
The Vice President has previously faced plagiarism accusations, including claims that her 2009 book Smart on Crime contained material lifted from other sources without proper attribution.
The allegations resurfaced Monday when conservative activist Christopher Rufo posted an article on Substack, listing several passages he said were copied from other sources without any or adequate attribution.
