CLEVELAND (AP) – With Donald Trump’s campaign reeling from charges of plagiarism, a speechwriter for his company took the blame and offered to resign over nearly identical passages from Melania Trump’s Republican convention speech and Michelle Obama’s remarks eight years ago.
The speechwriter, however, made it clear that Melania Trump knew that the passages she read to an enthralled convention Monday night had come from Michelle Obama.
“A person she has always liked is Michelle Obama,” the speechwriter, Meredith McIver, said of Mrs. Trump in a statement Wednesday from the campaign. “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.”
Donald Trump rejected McIver’s resignation. “She’s a terrific person,” he told ABC News on Wednesday. “She just made a mistake. And I thought it was terrific the way she came forward and said look, it was a mistake that I made.”
The controversy hung over the opening days of the GOP convention, overshadowing Mrs. Trump’s performance, which was warmly received by those in the convention hall.