Trump staff writer takes blame for Melania speech The Republican nominee says a 'cloud' has now been lifted off his wife.

Donald Trump’s campaign for days refused to admit that Melania Trump’s primetime convention speech contained passages lifted from Michelle Obama’s 2008 address -- then suddenly released a statement Wednesday admitting that it was.

Trump Organization staff writer Meredith McIver, in a statement taking responsibility for the plagiarism incident, said she had “offered my resignation to Mr. Trump and the Trump family, but they rejected it.”


Trump, she said, “told me that people make innocent mistakes and that we learn and grow from these experiences.”

The trouble began, McIver went on to explain, when Melania Trump read her several passages from Obama’s 2008 speech over the phone. “A person she has always liked is Michelle Obama,” McIver said.

“I wrote them down and later included some of the phrasing in the draft that ultimately became the final speech,” said McIver, a former ballet dancer who helped write some of Trump’s books. “I did not check Mrs. Obama's speeches. That 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.”

The statement was released at her own insistence, McIver said. “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.”

Trump later on Wednesday expressed relief that McIver's statement had lifted a "cloud" off of Melania, and said he decided not to fire McIver because she had proved her worth to the Trump Organization over the years.

"She’s been with me a long time. She’s a very good person. She came to see me because she hated to see the conflict. And she made a mistake. And, you know, people make mistakes. You’ve made mistakes. We all make mistakes," Trump told ABC News. "And I guess maybe if she weren’t with me for a long time and if I didn’t know how good she was—I’ve done books with her that have been bestsellers."

Trump added that his wife's speech can now be fully appreciated. "She had the hall. Totally had the hall. And now that cloud is lifted off her, which is terrific, because it was very unfair," he said.

The Trump campaign has been in damage control mode ever since observers starting pointing out the striking similarities soon after Melania Trump wrapped up her highly anticipated speech on Monday night.

Aggressive finger pointing ensued, with many, including former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, suggesting that Trump’s current campaign chief, Paul Manafort, was to blame.

For his part, Manafort denied there was any plagiarism in the first place.

“There's no cribbing of Michelle Obama's speech. These are common words and values that she cares about her family, things like that,” Manafort said Tuesday morning on CNN. “To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama's words is crazy.”

The incident even briefly split the top ranks of the Republican National Committee, whose chairman Reince Priebus said Trump should "probably" fire whoever was responsible, while his top lieutenant fiercely defended Melania Trump.

That RNC official, chief strategist Sean Spicer, mockingly compared passages of the would-be first lady's speech to quotes from Twilight Sparkle from "My Little Pony."

"I mean, if we want to take a bunch of phrases and run them through a Google [search] and say, 'Hey, who else has said them,' I can do that in 5 minutes," Spicer said Tuesday on CNN. "And that's what this is."

But McIver’s statement, released by the Trump campaign and tweeted out by Donald Trump himself, contradicts the notion that no “cribbing” occurred and adds to the reputation of a chaotic political operation.

It’s also a curious turn in a drama that was further stoked Tuesday night when it was pointed out that Donald Trump Jr.’s well-received prime-time speech included lines that appeared to be lifted from another text.

That controversy appeared relatively contained when the author of the original material, Frank Buckley, clarified Tuesday night that he helped write Trump Jr.’s speech.

However, Buckley on Wednesday deepened the mystery when he claimed the lines that Trump Jr. used from him were actually from another source – one he can’t remember.

“Such a silly kerfufle [sic] about the speech. Ironically, the lines I used I didn't invent. I borrowed them from someone else. I forget whom,” Buckley tweeted on Wednesday.

In an email exchange with POLITICO, Buckley, a law professor at George Mason University who writes for the American Conservative, also tried to brush off the controversy.

“We all borrow,” Buckley said in an email to POLITICO, referencing Rudyard Kipling's poem, When 'Omer Smote 'Is Bloomin' Lyre. “You read things. You make them part of you. Then you forget where you got them from. A lot of life is like that.”

Buckley explained that the two lines in question ("Our schools used to be an elevator to the middle class. Now they are stalled on the ground floor," and "They're like Soviet-era department stores that are run for the benefit of the clerks and not the customers.") were from his book "The Way Back" that was published earlier this year and that he had recycled them for some op-eds and articles.

He went on to say he wasn't even the original source of those lines.

"Here's the funny part. I'm sure I borrowed the line from somewhere else. Only I could never find for whom," Buckley said.

He said he wasn't exactly sure which lines he borrowed.

"Certanly [sic] the elevator line. Probably both. You read things. You make them part of you. Then you forget where you got them from. A lot of life is like that," Buckley wrote.

Trump also downplayed the controversy, while drawing more attention to it.

“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!” he tweeted mid-day Wednesday.

“The media is spending more time doing a forensic analysis of Melania's speech than the FBI spent on Hillary's emails.”

But others in the Trump camp seemed eager to simply move on.

Trump Jr. told MSNBC on Wednesday that the campaign is “focused on what’s ahead” and said refuted the notion that the plagiarism controversy is a reflection of how Trump’s operation runs.

"At this point it's irrelevant and we're beating a dead horse," Trump Jr. said.

Caroline Kelly and Tyler Pager contributed to this report.

