Sen. Rand Paul Randal (Rand) Howard PaulSecond GOP senator to quarantine after exposure to coronavirus GOP senator to quarantine after coronavirus exposure The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by National Industries for the Blind - Trump seeks to flip 'Rage' narrative; Dems block COVID-19 bill MORE (R-Ky.) defended himself against charges he plagiarized from Wikipedia in his speeches, dismissing them as originating from “political enemies” and “haters.”

“This is really about information and attacks coming from haters,” Paul said in an interview with Fusion on Wednesday. “The person who is leading this attack has been spreading hate on me for about three years now, and I don’t intend for it to go away.

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MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow first pointed out earlier this week that a few lines from a speech Paul gave, in which he summarized the movie “Gattaca,” read the same as the movie’s Wikipedia entry.

BuzzFeed found another speech in which Paul’s summary of the movie “Stand and Deliver” looked to be taken from the site.

Paul said there has never been any evidence that he has tried to take credit for someone else’s work. He claimed it is a controversy about footnotes rather than plagiarism.

“It is a disagreement on how you footnote things … but if we were to present any of these speeches for publication we would have footnotes in them. But a lot of times [in] a speech people don’t take the time to footnote things,” he said.

Paul said the plot line from the movie belongs to the screenwriter and he gave him credit in his speech.

“I didn’t claim that I created the movie ‘Gattaca.’ That is what is so absurd about this. The plotline to ‘Gattaca’ belongs to one person, the guy, the screenwriter, and I gave him credit for that.”

Neither news outlet claimed he took credit for the movie. Instead, they showed that Paul’s summaries of those movies seemed to be taken from Wikipedia.

Paul’s speech came earlier this week at a campaign stop for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli (R). He referenced "Gattaca" while warning against the potential for eugenics programs with advances in medical science.