A speechwriter in the Donald Trump campaign took responsibility this afternoon for the controversy surrounding Melania Trump's primetime address to the RNC.

Meredith McIver, an "in-house staff writer," apologized and said she offered her resignation, but Trump rejected it.

She also described herself as a "longtime friend and admirer of the Trump family."

Mrs. Trump was called out immediately after the address Monday night, with observers pointing to several passages that appeared to have been copied from Michelle Obama's 2008 address to the Democratic National Convention.

In her statement, McIver said that she discussed the speech beforehand with Melania Trump and that Melania said she was inspired by Michelle Obama.

McIver said Melania Trump read passages from a Michelle Obama speech over the phone and that she copied them down.

McIver said she put the passages into the final draft and failed to check the actual text of Mrs. Obama's speech.

"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," she wrote.

Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume weighed in on Outnumbered immediately after the statement came out, saying that the White House and presidential campaigns have meticulous processes in place to make sure this type of thing doesn't happen.

He pointed out the huge disparity in spending and staffing between Trump's campaign and Hillary Clinton's operation.

"This speech was written by somebody who is not accustomed to writing political speeches at this level. What you see here is what you get and that there is a price for bare-bones, low-cost operations," said Hume.

Meantime, Trump hit out at the media on Twitter today for focusing attention on the plagiarism controversy.

The media is spending more time doing a forensic analysis of Melania's speech than the FBI spent on Hillary's emails. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2016

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