A writer has taken responsibility for the "chaos" caused by a speech given by the wife of US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that drew accusations of plagiarism and cast a shadow over the party's convention this week.
Meredith McIver, a staff writer for the Trump Organisation, apologised and offered an explanation that contrasted with two days of efforts by the Trump campaign to deny there had been a problem with Melania Trump's speech on Monday night.
The Republicans' convention in Cleveland, which formally chose Trump on Tuesday as the party nominee for the presidential election on November 8, was meant to be an occasion for the party to rally around its unorthodox White House candidate after a bitterly divisive primary campaign.
Statement on Melania Trump speech pic.twitter.com/0iWIaFFjZW
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) July 20, 2016
But the accusations of plagiarism, and the Trump campaign's responses to them, have been a major talking point just as the party tries to showcase both a candidate who can appeal to voters, and a campaign operation capable of beating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
In a statement, McIver said she had inserted passages into the Melania Trump speech that resembled parts of a 2008 speech by first lady Michelle Obama.
McIver said Melania Trump had read passages from Michelle Obama's speech to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, when Barack Obama was in his first campaign for the presidency, over the phone to her as examples. McIver then wrote them down and later included some of the phrasing in a draft that became Melania Trump's speech.
McIver said in her statement that Michelle Obama is a person Melania Trump "has always liked."
"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," McIver said.
A small section of Melania Trump's roughly 15-minute speech, which was a highlight of the opening day of the convention, was strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's 2008 speech.
In the statement by McIver and comments by Trump campaign officials on the speech, nowhere has there been any sense of irony that the wife of the Republican nominee was inspired by the words of Michelle Obama at the same time that speaker after speaker at the Republican convention has assailed the policies of President Obama.
Democrats have seized on the similarities in the speech and the Trump campaign's various explanations over the next 48 hours as showing that his team is not ready for prime time. The charge was all the more embarrassing because Trump has repeatedly slammed Clinton as untrustworthy.
'BUNGLED SO BADLY'
Questions have lingered over why the Trump campaign had not run simple plagiarism software that is commonly used to ensure that speakers do not inadvertently lift other people's words, and why the campaign sought to deny and brush away the problem.
Republican strategist Ted Newton, president of Gravity Strategic Communications and a staffer in Republican Mitt Romney's failed 2012 presidential campaign, said the Trump campaign should have come clean much sooner.
"It sort of reflects the old adage: It's not the crime, it's the cover-up," Newton said. "To have it bungled so badly is really a shame and sad for her."
If the campaign had admitted what happened sooner, Newton said, "It would have been a bump in the road."
Trump argued early on Wednesday that the fuss could actually be a plus for his campaign, but he did not admit that passages were lifted from Michelle Obama's words.
"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!" Trump wrote on Twitter.
Under pressure to explain what had happened and who was to blame, Trump's people offered different versions of events on Monday and Tuesday. He did not admit that the speech had borrowed from Michelle Obama's words.
Hours before giving the speech, Melania Trump, a Slovenian-born jewelry designer and former model, told NBC's Today that she had written it with as little help as possible. But her husband's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, told CBS' This Morning on Tuesday that it was a collaboration with speechwriters.
McIver said she had offered to resign over the speech controversy, but Trump and his family had rejected the offer. The Trump Organisation is owned by Donald Trump.
She is listed as a writer on some of Trump's most popular books, including Trump: How to Get Rich and Trump: Think Like a Billionaire. Her author's biography in How to Get Rich says she was a Ford Foundation scholar who graduated from the University of Utah, as well as a member of the Trump Organisation.
SHOW OF SOLIDARITY
Trump was making a show of solidarity on Wednesday with running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence, a social conservative who is at odds with the New York businessman on many issues.
Pence was the keynote speaker on Wednesday, the third day of a convention that ends on Thursday night when Trump accepts the nomination.
Trump made an arrival in Cleveland on Wednesday fitting with his larger-than-life personality, landing in a helicopter emblazoned with his last name on the tail. Playing over the loudspeakers was the soaring tune of the movie Air Force One. Stepping off the aircraft, he greeted Pence and was handed a microphone.
He told a crowd that Pence is "going to make an unbelievable vice president of the United States."
"We're excited to hear you address the nation tomorrow night," Pence said. "I'm confident that what begins in Cleveland will end in the White House."
Pence has been well-received by people in the party's social conservative wing, who have been skeptical of Trump's commitment to opposing abortion and same-sex marriage. Social conservatives trust his vice presidential candidate, but joint appearances between the two men have been awkward.
Trump and Pence shared the stage only briefly on Saturday when Pence publicly agreed to be Trump's running mate, and their first televised interview together, on CBS's 60 Minutes, was not smooth.
For example, asked about Pence's support for the Iraq war while he was a US lawmaker, Trump responded, "I don't care," saying Pence was allowed to make occasional mistakes. When the interviewer asked if Clinton should get the same wiggle room on her own vote for the war when she was a US senator, Trump said, "No."
Manafort said Trump and Pence had begun to gel. "They may have different personalities but they have similar visions," he told reporters on Wednesday. "I'm comfortable that it's a less awkward situation than I've seen in many marriages."
