In a shocking plot twist, Vice President Kamala Harris has landed herself in the middle of a plagiarism tempest. Harris has been accused of making up stories about sex trafficking and brazenly plagiarizing other prosecutors, a judge, and even Wikipedia. These accusations have begun to blow up in her public face as questions are now being asked about her integrity and past work.
But at the root of this scandal is the 2012 human-trafficking report in which Harris reportedly doctored a hypothetical scenario from the Polaris Project as if it were an actual case that occurred in San Francisco. The case in question was wholly fabricated for illustrative purposes, with Harris representing it as fact-stunning critics and leaving a bad taste for those who had trusted her leadership as California’s top prosecutor.
But that’s not all. Harris is also accused of swiping whole paragraphs from former California Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s reports and from a New York judge’s writings in several state reports under her name. Even Wikipedia wasn’t safe from Harris’ cut-and-paste tactics, as large swaths of her reports were directly taken from the free online encyclopedia.
If that were not enough, critics labeled Harris a “political chameleon” for flip-flopping on key issues and changing color with whatever the prevailing political climate serves her best. Now, this plagiarism scandal is just pouring fuel on the fire, giving her critics even more ammunition to question her genuineness. With allegations mounting, Harris may well need more than smooth rhetoric to dig herself out of the hole that keeps getting deeper.
