As Twitchy reported earlier, Christopher Rufo said that both he and the famed Austrian "plagiarism hunter" Dr. Stefan Weber had found multiple instances of plagiarism in Kamala Harris' book, "Smart on Crime." Rufo says Harris (or her ghostwriter) lifted passages from the AP, NBC News, the Urban Institute, and even Wikipedia.

We would have left it at that, but the New York Times reported that Rufo had "seized" on passages from Harris' book (rather than "pounced" on them).

Not only did a conservative "seize" on the passages — the Times found a plagiarism expert who said, "the lapses were not serious." So they're admitting there were lapses, but they found an expert to write them off.

"In a review of the book, The New York Times found that none of the passages in question took the ideas or thoughts of another writer, which is considered the most serious form of plagiarism."

So they're admitting that Harris plagiarized passages of her book, but it was a less serious form of plagiarism.

This is embarrassing. The New York Times should have just ignored the story.

Rufo presented the highlighted passages from Harris' book right next to the sources from which she lifted them. But the Times found an expert who says it's no big deal.

That looks like the defense the Harris camp is going with. She co-wrote the book. It was the ghostwriter who plagiarized all of the sources.

The Times didn't waste any time finding their own plagiarism expert to explain how this was a less serious form of plagiarism.