Melania Trump plagiarism issue: Speechwriter admits mistake, apologises for 'chaos'

A Trump Organisation staff writer said she made a “mistake” in including passages from a Michelle Obama speech in Melania Trump’s convention speech.

Meredith McIver said she offered her resignation, but Donald Trump rejected it.

McIver explained her role in the Trump plagiarism controversy in a statement issued Wednesday.

McIver said Melania read passages of Michelle’s 2008 convention speech during the writing the process. She says her notes from that conversation made it into the final version.

She said she feels terrible for the “chaos” she caused.

The Trump campaign has said denied accusations of plagiarism, saying the similarities were coincidence.

Sen. Bob Corker said the controversy over the passages in Melania’s convention speech has been “aggravated by the response” from the Trump campaign.

The Tennessee Republican told The Associated Press that he “can’t imagine that from her part there was anything nefarious under way.” Corker adds that he thinks the campaign should have found “a better way” to handle the situation “so that it’s not kept alive. She’s got to be mortified.”

Two passages of Melania Trump’s speech Monday night were nearly identical to passages from Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention eight years ago. But rather than acknowledge any error, Trump’s campaign is in denial mode, blaming the media for creating a controversy and suggesting Hillary Clinton bore some responsibility.

In fact, Trump went to the extent of saying that the plagiarism charges are not necessarily all bad.

He tweeted, “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 also blamed the press for harping on the issue, saying the media “is spending more time doing a forensic analysis of Melania’s speech than the FBI spent on Hillary (Clinton)’s emails.”