Shocker: Melania Trump, wife of world’s most famous birther, admires the Obamas’ American values
By Greg Sargent July 20 at 2:53 PM
On Day Three of the Melania Trump plagiarism story, her assistant puts out a new statement explaining what really happened:
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This admission — we now know the phrases were, in fact, lifted directly from Michelle Obama’s speech — cuts against some of the other explanations we’ve heard thus far, such as Trump senior adviser Paul Manafort’s previous suggestion that there was “no cribbing” from Ms. Obama’s effort, and an RNC official’s suggestion that such language was so common that it resembled language in “Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony.”
We now know that the lines were indeed cribbed, and the overlap was not accidental. This is true, even if the exact language itself was not intended for inclusion in the final version of Ms. Trump’s speech.
What’s more, if we accept this new statement at face value, the most charitable version of events is that Ms. Trump read aloud lines from Ms. Obama’s speech to her assistant, and then, once they were included in the final text (inadvertently, if you wish), didn’t recognize them. (Or is it possible she didn’t read the speech before delivering it?) If so, Ms. Trump forgot them after singling them out admiringly as a model for the biggest speech of her life. Maybe that happened. Surely there was a lot on her mind before the speech.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/07/20/shocker-melania-trump-wife-of-worlds-most-famous-birther-admires-the-obamas-american-values/