Melania Trump Reportedly Had A Heavy Hand In Plagiarized Speech

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gives his thumb up as he walks off the stage with his wife Melania during the Republican National Convention, Monday, July 18, 2016, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/John Locher)
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A new report out Tuesday suggests the blame for Melania Trump’s plagiarized convention speech could fall more squarely on the former model and complicates the narrative that a speechwriter or other staffers were to blame for the high-profile embarrassment.

Two anonymous sources briefed on the matter told the New York Times that Matthew Scully, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush working on contract, wrote an early draft of Trump’s speech several weeks ago.

But Trump made substantial changes to the draft, with help from a Trump Organization employee, once she got her hands on Scully’s text, one anonymous source told the newspaper.

The plagiarism issue quickly became the dominant media story on day two of the Republican National Convention. While initially praised as a humanizing speech from the reserved woman who could be the next first lady, journalist Jarrett Hill quickly surfaced a passage from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention address that appeared nearly verbatim in Trump’s address.

While Team Trump has praised the speech for its context, denied any “cribbing” from Obama and tried to shift the blame to Hillary Clinton, others called for the party responsible for the plagiarism to be fired for their role in the misstep.

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  1. Ok, I’m all done with this. They botched what was supposed to be a harmless bit of drivel by Melania. Does this story have legs… beyond the fact that team trump can’t even get a little bit of fluff right? :smile:

  2. SCOOP. TRumP ORganIZatiON employee has TIEs TO HITLARY wHO hates STRONG Women.

  3. Honest to God. IF she did it are you REALLY going to tell us they will throw her under the bus? This is reminiscent of the crap they pulled with Michelle Obama (she’s too strong, she needs to be reined in, etc) of 2008. BULL PUCKY. People that WORK for Trump don’t mean squat. You DO NOT blame your family…politics 101. AND then you are trying to tell us that it wasn’t vetted by MANAFORT before they loaded it into the teleprompter? REALLY? This is way too much crap for me to swallow.

  4. “The plagiarism issue quickly became the dominant media story on day two of the Republican National Convention.”

    London Cleveland is burning.

    They haven’t seen an inferno this big since the river caught fire in 1969.

  5. I sympathize but it came on a night where they were trying to tie ‘Crooked Hillary’ with all the fear and loathing and lying from non-whites into a toxic little bundle and they put Melania Trump right in the crosshairs…as if she didn’t matter.

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