Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign Wednesday identified an in-house staff writer as the person responsible for plagiarism in Melania Trump’s convention speech.
→ THE RUNDOWN
- Meredith McIver was responsible for the passages in Melania Trump’s Monday night convention speech that were drawn from Michelle Obama’s address to the 2008 Democratic convention
- A statement by the campaign featured an apology from McIver where she stated the Republican presidential nominee had rejected her offer to resign
- The statement attributed to Ms. McIver said the similarities between the two speeches occurred after Mrs. Trump read aloud passages of Mrs. Obama’s speech at the Democratic convention as an example of “people who inspired her and messages she wanted to share with the American people”
- “This was my mistake and I feel terrible for the chaos I have caused Melania and the Trumps, as well as to Mrs. Obama,” the statement said
- Donald Trump told her “people make innocent mistakes and we learn and grow from these experiences”
- Trump tweeted “Good news is Melania’s speech got more publicity than any in the history of politics especially if you believe that all the press is good press!” followed by “The media is spending more time doing a forensic analysis of Melania’s speech than the FBI spent on Hillary’s emails”