Melania Trump’s 2016 Republican convention speech in support of her husband Donald Trump quite clearly plagiarized multiple lines from a Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic convention speech in support of her husband Barack Obama. While the many ironies here are delightful, the question remained as of Tuesday afternoon: Who was responsible for this catastrophe?
The Trump campaign was giving no indication of who was to blame, with CNN reporting that it had no plans to submit to the loud calls for somebody to be fired over the incident. “I don’t think Donald Trump feels there’s anything to fire someone for,” Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort told CBS.
In another interview, Manafort denied that cribbing even took place. But as former Obama speechwriter David Litt put it to NBC, “any claim that that’s coincidence shouldn’t even be taken remotely seriously. … She used specifically the current first lady’s speech in a speech where she’s auditioning to be the first lady. The level of brazenness is remarkable.”
Whether or not Trump wants to hold someone responsible, that doesn’t change the fact that someone is responsible. There are multiple conflicting reports as to who that person is, but no solid evidence yet. Here are who have been identified so far as potential suspects:
1. Senior Manafort aide Rick Gates. “Sources familiar with the campaign’s handling of Melania Trump’s speech identify top Manafort deputy Rick Gates as the person inside the campaign who oversaw the entire speech process for Melania Trump,” CNN reported. Gates, however, told CNN that he was “absolutely not” involved in overseeing the speech process. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, denied to the New York Times that Gates was involved. “Rick’s not a speechwriter and he doesn’t have a role in the campaign’s speech-writing process—we have other people for that. Anybody saying differently is being intentionally misleading,” said Jason Miller, the campaign’s senior communications adviser.
2. Contract speechwriter Matthew Scully. The New York Times reports: “Two people briefed on the process, who insisted on anonymity to discuss such a sensitive issue, said that a contract speechwriter, Matthew Scully, had written an early draft of Ms. Trump’s speech several weeks ago.”
3. Someone working for the Trump Organization. Again, from the Times: “[After Scully’s work] Ms. Trump then took that speech and made substantial changes to it, according to [a person briefed on the process], with help from someone working at the Trump Organization.”
4. A team of anonymous writers. “In writing her beautiful speech, Melania’s team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking,” Miller told the Times.
5. Melania Trump. As noted above, there are reports that Trump took a very personal role in crafting her own speech. In fact, Melania told NBC’s Matt Lauer on Monday before the speech that it was practically all her: “I read once over it and that’s all, because I wrote it, and with as little help as possible.”
If it was Melania’s fault, that would at least offer some explanation why Trump is apparently not interested in disciplining anyone for the incident. He can’t very well fire his wife.
