A member of Melania Trump’s speechwriting staff has finally confessed to copying direct quotations from one of Michelle Obama’s 2008 speeches into Mrs. Trump’s Republican National Convention address on Monday night.
According to The New York Times, Meredith McIver, a longtime writer for the Trump Organization, released a statement on Wednesday apologizing for her role in “lifting two passages” from Mrs. Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech. Up until then, the Trump campaign had denied all accusations of plagiarism.
Before delivering her RNC address, Mrs. Trump told NBC’s Matt Lauer in an interview, “I read it once over, and that’s all because I wrote it with as little help as possible.” These words came back to haunt her after she phrased much of the “self-written” speech in the exact way Mrs. Obama did.
In her statement, McIver clarified the actual writing process that went into the botched speech. Apparently, Mrs. Trump admired Michelle Obama, and wanted to share an inspiring message with the American people, much like she did eight years ago.
“[Melania] read me some passages from Mrs. Obama’s speech as examples,” McIver wrote. “I wrote them down and later included some of the phrasing in the draft that ultimately became the final speech. I did not check Mrs. Obama’s speeches. This was my mistake and I feel terrible for the chaos I have caused Melania and the Trumps as well as to Mrs. Obama. No harm was meant.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, after releasing the news of her mistake to the public, McIver attempted to resign from her position, but said that Trump refused her resignation. However, her statement also made it clear she worked for the Trump organization, rather than the Trump campaign. This left many Americans in doubt of the competence of Trump’s campaign and staffing decisions.
“Mr. Trump told me that people make innocent mistakes and we learn and grow from these experiences,” she wrote.