The person (supposedly) behind the Melania speech debacle was a 65-year-old female Democrat.
http://www.wkyc.com/news/politics/na...crat/278059400
I'm not ready to go all tinfoil hat on this. She had worked with the Trump family for decades, and was friends with them.
I think she was just lazy, and made a really boneheaded mistake.
Her excuse was weird (and bullshitty sounding):
Quote:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
My name is Meredith McIver and I’m an in-house staff writer at the Trump Organization. I am also a longtime friend and admirer of the Trump family.
In working with Melania Trump on her recent First Lady speech, we discussed many people who inspired her and messages she wanted to share with the American people. A person she has always liked is Michelle Obama. 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. 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.
Yesterday, I offered my resignation to Mr. Trump and the Trump family, but they rejected it. Mr. Trump told me that people make innocent mistakes and that we learn and grow from these experiences.
I asked to put out this statement because I did not like seeing the way this was distracting from Mr. Trump’s historic campaign for president and Melania’s beautiful message and presentation.
I apologize for the confusion and hysteria my mistake has caused. Today, more than ever, I am honored to work for such a great family. I personally admire the way Mr. Trump has handled this situation and I am grateful for his understanding.
Sincerely,
Meredith McIver
Meredith McIver is saying that Melania read her some passages from Michelle Obama's speeches that she admired, she wrote them down, and didn't realize she was copying it all from the same speech, but was rather using those passages as inspiration.
The passages were FAR too similar to have simply been cobbled together like that after scribbling them down on a piece of paper. And besides, even if that were true, why was this okay? She's basically admitting that she copied Michelle Obama's speech, but thought she was cobbling together passages from different speeches. Why would that have been any better?
I also doubt that Melania was googling Michelle Obama's speeches and reading them to her speechwriter.
Since they are not firing Meredith, I think it's possible that the error was someone else's, but she (as a family friend) agreed to fall on the sword, so as to not make the more prominent campaign managers look bad.
Whatever the case, this was a pretty ridiculous blunder.