After a day of denials, the Trump campaign has identified the writer responsible for lifting passages from a Michelle Obama speech and placing them into Melania Trump’s RNC speech. In a statement that arrives on Trump Organization letterhead, in-house staff writer Meredith McIver has taken the blame for the potential First Lady’s plagiarism scandal. It was previously reported that McIver and Mrs. Trump made last-minute changes to the speech after turning down a draft commissioned by the campaign.
“A person [Melania Trump] has always liked is Michelle Obama,” McIver wrote. “Over the phone, she read me some passages from Mrs. Obama’s speech as examples. I wrote them down and later included some of the phrasing in the draft that ultimately became the final speech.” McIver admits that she did not go back to cross-check those phrases with Mrs. Obama’s speech from 2008.
“Yesterday, I offered my resignation to Mr. Trump and the Trump family, but they rejected it,” McIver wrote. “Mr. Trump told me that people make innocent mistakes and that we learn and grow from these experiences.” The fact that no one will lose their job over the debacle led some pundits to speculate that Mrs. Trump directly cribbed Mrs. Obama’s language. You can read McIver’s full statement below.
Meredith McIver, an in-house staff writer from the Trump Organization, releases statement on Melania speech pic.twitter.com/mWuPKmjsbn
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) July 20, 2016
The New York Times notes that McIver’s apology makes her “the first person to publicly apologize for an error at any point during the Trump campaign.”
Donald Trump also addressed the controversy on Twitter:
Good news is Melania's speech got more publicity than any in the history of politics especially if you believe that all press is good press!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2016
The media is spending more time doing a forensic analysis of Melania's speech than the FBI spent on Hillary's emails.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2016