Melania Trump’s speech at the GOP convention in Cleveland is drawing comparisons to Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. Here’s a side-by-side look at both. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Melania Trump’s speech at the GOP convention in Cleveland is drawing comparisons to Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. Here’s a side-by-side look at both. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Meredith McIver, an employee valued by Donald Trump for her discretion and writing, took responsibility Wednesday for the plagiarized portions of Melania’s Trump’s speech to the Republican National Convention, thrusting a little-known loyalist into the spotlight she had long avoided.

But she wasn’t fired.

“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,” McIver wrote in a statement adorned with the Trump Organization’s gold-lettered logo.

Trump’s handling of the episode gave a rare glimpse into the shrouded and deeply personal culture of his New York-based real estate conglomerate, the Trump Organization, where three of his adult children serve as executives and many staffers describe themselves as part of a family with a dominant patriarch.

As Trump prepares to accept his party’s presidential nomination here Thursday, it was also a vivid reminder that the brash candidate remains a figure universally recognized but enigmatic as a leader, in particular over how he singularly manages the private company that he has called home for his entire professional life — and which would surely be a model for how he would arrange his White House.

The Washington Post's Dan Balz explains why the Trump campaign is still talking about plagiarism two days after Melania Trump's RNC speech. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Beyond the dramatic “you’re fired” part of Trump’s persona, and his penchant for shaking up his high command in business or his presidential campaign, you’ll find a 70-year-old businessman who places a premium on finding and keeping hires who are utterly devoted to him and his gilded kingdom of skyscrapers and golf courses.

It is that tight-knit, obedient formation of mid-level confidants — the long-serving advisers and assistants, the security and legal personnel — that forms the mostly unnoticed core of Trump’s organization, and of his life. The setup has enabled him to lead as he does, barking decisions and making a flurry of phone calls from his 26th-floor executive suite in Trump Tower.

While Trump consults with them and listens carefully to their updates on the latest price of glass windows in Scotland or acreage in Palm Beach, he is always at the center, always deciding. Understanding that dynamic and earning his trust within it has led to decades-long tenures for those who are more interested in helping Trump than sharing his power.

This is not an all-Ivy League club or a coterie with Wall Street polish. What a majority share, besides their reverence for “Mr. Trump,” are backgrounds that often have links to blue-collar New York or to experiences outside elite circles — and an innate aversion to taking any attention away from a boss who covets it.

According to her biography on a speakers’ website, McIver, 65, is a native of San Jose, Calif., and graduated from the University of Utah. She trained at the School of American Ballet in New York before finding her way into Trump’s orbit, working with him on several books and becoming a ghostwriter for both Trump and his wife whenever they were readying public remarks.

Instead of responding promptly to the crisis that preoccupied his campaign in the early hours of Tuesday morning as the plagiarism became apparent, or cutting loose McIver for the lapse, Trump was reluctant about the suggestion that he should quickly reveal her role to the media, according to several people close to him.

In New York away from campaign aides and without a public schedule, he spent time connecting with McIver and other Trump Organization officials to discuss the situation, said one person who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Trump’s activities.

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When McIver offered her resignation, Trump, annoyed and angered by the swirling media reports but working on several projects, including his upcoming nomination acceptance speech, promptly rejected it and told her that he valued her loyalty. He reasoned that her departure would be disruptive at a company whose internal politics and organization are critical to him, especially as he campaigns, said a second person close to Trump.

During visits to Trump Tower over the past year, The Washington Post has spotted McIver on only a few occasions. Usually she is out of sight, not interested in meeting reporters stopping by to interview Trump. That same head-down approach is shared by the women and men who work in cubicles near Trump’s office, answering the phone and doing accounting for his properties. They wait for him to call them, or yell their way, and otherwise tend to their tasks.

Others around Trump have similar stories to McIver’s.

Michael Cohen, the company’s executive vice president and an attorney, grew up on Long Island and shares Trump’s outer-borough cadence. He has frequently described Trump as a father-like mentor. Jason Greenblatt, a top executive and a Jew, hails from Forest Hills, N.Y., and has been a fierce defender of Trump against charges of anti-Semitism, taking the criticism personally.

Keith Schiller, a terse and tall former detective who has for years been Trump’s ubiquitous bodyguard, and Rhona Graff, his executive assistant and gatekeeper, have been with him since the 1980s. Hope Hicks, now the campaign’s spokeswoman, joined the campaign after working for the company and growing friendly with the family.

It’s “us and blood,” as one Trump employee once put it to The Post. Everyone working there knows that at least three of his children — Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric — will play key roles in guiding the operation and are the company’s future. But the non-Trumps still feel protected and part of the family because of the way Trump manages without a deputy or a corporate palace guard.

“Today, more than ever, I’m honored to work for such a great family,” McIver wrote in her letter Wednesday.

And at the Trump Organization, the boss wants you to feel that family pull, as long as you stay in line.