Melania Trump‘s speech writer has apologized for plagiarizing Michelle Obama‘s 2008 speech. Meredith McIver, a longtime employee of the Trump Organization, who is also a ghostwriter for the mogul, claimed she is the one, who inadvertently left the passage from Mrs. Obama.
In a lengthy statement issued by McIver, she said that during the 5-to 6-week writing process, Mrs. Trump talked about several people, who had inspired her, including First Lady Michelle Obama.
During a phone conversation, the former model shared few lines from the amazing speech Mrs. Obama gave at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and apparently McIver neglected to remove them from the final draft. McIver said:
“A person she has always liked is Michelle Obama.Over the phone, she read me some passages of 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 went on to apologize, both to Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Trump, for the chaos her mistake caused. She also claimed that she offered her resignation to Donald Trump, who refused it and decided to forgive her. Here is the full statement:
Donald Trump defended his employee by saying:
“She made a mistake. … We all make mistakes, very good person.”
The statement is in contradiction with remarks made by campaign manager Paul Manafort, who claimed that Hillary Clinton, was behind the plagiarism drama. Mrs. Trump either lied or is very forgetful because before making her speech, she claimed that she wrote most of it.
“I read it once over, and that’s all because I wrote it with as little help as possible.”
