As an initial matter, @MeredithMcTrump is doing a fantastic job uncovering information on this story. There are a lot of accounts popping up on Twitter trying to obfuscate and muddy the water on this story, but he/she is the individual I have been working with to some extent, and is responsible for most of the information in this dairy. Many accounts are popping up (for instance @themcivertruth) whose purpose is to try and confuse people.
A few days back I posted a diary explaining why getting to the bottom of the Meredith McIver story was important:
McIver- An Enduring Mystery
In that diary I focused on why getting to the bottom of this story was important, with the issue of her reality being only one aspect of those issues. Now, with new evidence in hand, I think it is time to perform an exhaustive focus on whether or not “McGiver” is real, looking at what we know right now. Further, if it is assumed she is in fact real, I intend to argue that the press must have an opportunity to see her and at least confirm she is OK. If she is a real person I am concerned for her well being, because there is no documented evidence of her existence in years.
I actually feel like this is far more important than many people realize. It is in fact a critical issue that must be resolved before the American people go to vote to potentially elect this man president. Why is it so important to me? Because if Trump fabricated a person and created a fake letter and gave an interview detailing a conversation with a fake person all to cover up the embarrassment of what happened, it says an awful lot about how this man will handle a crisis as a president. We have had presidents in the past who engaged in coverups to hide misdeeds, and the results of such actions (Watergate, Iran-Contra) are disastrous for the country, on so many fronts. Imagine what such a person would do with the vast power of the presidency if he is willing to do something like this?
First, before getting to the evidence, I want to take a minute and say a little about myself and what my goals are here. I am an attorney who has practiced law for over 20 years. I am NOT a conspiracy theorist. I can’t recall a conspiracy theory I’ve ever really believed. Men did walk on the moon, Sandy Hook and 9-11 were not government conspiracies. I do not believe in the Illuminati. As an attorney, I believe strongly in evaluating the evidence. Being aware of bias and trying to remove that and just look at the facts before you. I am a Clinton supporter. I am aware that may bias my view of the facts. I invite ANYONE reading this diary to weigh in, and point out if I’m jumping to conclusions or speculation anywhere, and not applying a fair, impartial evaluation of the evidence.
Further, the purpose of this dairy is NOT going to be to try to beat anyone over the head and persuade them one way or the other. My goal will be to present the facts, and to provide suggestions as to how the issue of McIver’s existence could be easily resolved if we have anyone in the media willing to do their job, just a little bit. As an attorney, you have to wear different hats. When I’m considering a new client, I have to look at the evidence impartially and decide if there is enough evidence there to make a case for them. When I am trying to win their case, I of course have to be an advocate, and try to persuade. Here, I am trying to play the role of an impartial dissiminater of the facts I know about the McIver situation, and let you the reader make up your own mind. That said, I will offer my thoughts, interpretations at points, and questions, but my purpose here is to lay the facts out and not push one conclusion or the other.
All that said, lets take a look at what we know:
BACKGROUND
According to a New York Times article, McIver is a 65 year old co-author of several books with Donald Trump.
www.nytimes.com/…
The New York Times article includes these photos of McGiver:
McGiver in Trump’s office, date unknown
McGiver in 1986
According to Wikipedia (and other sources):
McIver is originally from San Jose, California but moved to New York City at age 14 on a Ford Foundation Scholarship for dance. In New York, McIver trained at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet during the summers of 1965 and 1966, and was enrolled full-time in the advanced division courses at the School of American Ballet 1967–70.[2] She later earned an English degree at the University of Utah, graduating with honours in 1976.[2][7]
en.wikipedia.org/…
I will note below, there seems to be a lot of interest in McIver’s Wikipedia page, with some attempts to scrub or even delete the page, but for now it is there.
According to the NY Times story, McGiver, “The daughter of ballroom dancers”, did not respond to messages seeking comment. The NY Times provides:
She returned to New York and in 1981 danced in the company of the revival of “Can Can” at the Minskoff Theater in New York. It closed after five performances. ( “Mediocre material, no matter how it’s sliced, is still mediocre material,” The New York Times wrote in its review.)
She settled on the Upper West Side, and her fashionable dress, dancer’s figure and green eyes turned heads at the grocery. She traveled to the Netherlands and France.
For what it’s worth, I did some looking and there is a “Meredith McIver” listed at at least one location online in the cast of the 1981 revival of “Can Can.” I could not find any pictures of her from this period. There was a site (I did not note and do not recall) that had archived pictures of the cast and the play, but I could not identify anyone appearing to be McIver).
According to a Buzzfeed article McIver worked on Wall Street prior to coming to work for Trump:
Meredith McIver is a close associate to the world famous real estate titan and recent TV Impresario Donald Trump.
Ms. McIver co-authored the best-selling book, “Trump: How to Get Rich,” which reveals the secrets of his success. Over the years, everyone has urged Trump to write on this subject, but it wasn’t until NBC and executive producer Mark Burnett asked him to star in “The Apprentice” that he realized just how hungry people are to learn how great personal wealth is created and first-class businesses are run. Thousands applied to be Trump’s apprentice, and millions have been watching the program, making it the highest rated debut of the season.
In “Trump: How to Get Rich,” Ms. McIver assists in presenting Trump’s lessons learned from “The Apprentice,” his real estate empire, his position as head of the 20,000-member Trump Organization, and his most important role, as a father who has successfully taught his children the value of money and hard work.
With his luxury buildings, award-winning golf courses, high-stakes casinos, and glamorous beauty pageants, Donald J. Trump is one of a kind in American business. Every day, he lives the American dream. Now Ms. McIver will show you how he’s done it!
Meredith McIver has been a member of The Trump Organization since September of 2001. Prior to that she worked on Wall Street. Originally from San Jose, California, Meredith started her career at age 14 as a Ford Foundation Scholar, when she began training at George Balachine’s School of American Ballet. She graduated with honors from the University of Utah in English, and has worked as an editor and writer.
www.buzzfeed.com/…
Source of biography for Buzzfeed article
The source of this information originated at a website for All American Speakers. The biography appears to have been taken down, but a screen capture was provided in the Buzzfeed article, as shown (right), and it can still be accessed via web archiving tool: web.archive.org/...
Attempts to call All American Speakers for more information resulted in hang ups or disconnected calls.
McIvers Speakerpedia activity via internet archive
I do not recall seeing a history provided for McIver working on Wall Street at other locations.
McGiver started working for Donald Trump in September, 2001, and is mentioned in a March, 2005 NY Times article “Ghosts in the Machine”:
www.nytimes.com/…
After going to work for Trump, McIver went on to ghost write several books with Trump:
- Trump: How to Get Rich with Donald J. Trump (2004)[17][18]
- Trump: Think Like a Billionaire with Donald J. Trump (2004)[18][19]
- Trump 101: The Way to Success with Donald J. Trump (2006)[18]
- Why We Want You to Be Rich with Donald J. Trump, Robert T. Kiyosaki, and Sharon L. Lechter (2006)[18]
- Trump: Never Give Up with Donald J. Trump (2008)[18]
There is no evidence available online that I could find documenting any appearances at book promotions, book signings, or interviews related to these books.
According to “Diamond” Donna Root, McIver travelled the country with her in 2005 doing financial seminars:
Meredith McIver of The Trump Organization, has known Donna Root since 2005 when they worked together in financial seminars throughout the United States, and says Donna is a dynamic presence, who is positive and clear in her teaching.
“Donna is sincere and caring, and obviously committed to her work with an evident sense of responsibility for those around her in both the professional and personal sense,” said Meredith McIver. “This is an attribute that adds significantly to her dimensions as a speaker, consultant and writer. She is thoughtful and thorough, and I can recommend her highly.”
www.prweb.com/…
Touring the country with Diamond Donna Root
To date, no one has come forward to confirm that McIver travelled the country as a speaker, something that would presumably be pretty easy to confirm with a little checking.
Trump offers up McIver as source for errors in 2007 depo
In 2007, in a deposition in a defamation lawsuit Trump brought against Timothy L. O'Brien, Donald Trump pointed to McIver as the likely author, in two books they wrote together, of overstated claims of his indebtedness in the midst of the 1990s real estate market crash, making his financial comeback appear more significant.[1][10]
www.washingtonpost.com/...
McGiver has been described at various times as having different roles in the Trump organization. Obviously she has a title as a writer. But she has also been described as a media relations person per business card (ala Miller/Barron), and also as an administrative or personal assistant to Donald Trump.
Business card mailed to twitter.com/…
A Seattle Times story from April of this year references Coach Mike Leach going on a trip to New York City in 2004 and calling Trump. The story indicates he could not get hold of Trump but the call was transferred to Trump’s “personal assistant” Meredith McGiver:
April, 2016 Seattle Times article
www.seattletimes.com/…
The story doesn’t explain how he remembered the assistant’s name twelve years after making the call (it is possible he made a note or something and made a point of telling the reporter, but throwing the tidbit in about who took the call 12 years earlier struck me as odd).
Trump has described in book acknowledgements that McIver can take down what he says “because my door is always open” implying that McIver worked in very close proximity to him at least during the years he was working on the books.
Plagiarism controversy
Immediately after Melania Trump’s speech on July 18, it was reported that portions of the speech appeared to have been lifted from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech. www.washingtonpost.com/…
The issue was particularly potentially embarrassing for Trump because in an interview just before the speech, Melania had indicated she had written the speech herself, with as little help as possible.
“I wrote it...”
In addition, the fact that the lines were taken from an Obama speech, and spoke of values of “hard work” and “treating people with dignity and respect” seemed particularly problematic under the circumstances.
Also little noted in the speech was a line that appeared to be a “Rick Rolled” prank:
hard work, treating people with respect and dignity
heavy.com/...
This is not particularly important to the McIver story other than to address potential motivation for decisions made in response to the plagiarism reveal which will be discussed below.
After struggling to handle the story for a few days, with various revisions of the explanation for the cribbed lines including denials of plagiarism, the Trump campaign finally released a letter from McIver which to some degree took the blame for the incident:
assets.donaldjtrump.com/…
My apologies...
Meredith McIver, an in-house staff writer at the Trump Organization and a "longtime friend and admirer of the Trump family," said she added the sections of the speech after Melania Trump said she admired the first lady.
"In working with Melania Trump on her first lady speech, we discussed many people who inspired her and messages she wanted to share with the American people. A person she has always liked was Michelle Obama," McIver said. "Over the phone, she read me some passages from Mrs. Obama's speech as examples. I wrote them down and later included some of the phrasing in the draft that ultimately became the final speech. 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."
www.al.com/...
After the letter was released, Trump gave a brief interview explaining that McIver had offered her resignation, but that he would not accept it because McIver was “like a member of the family.”
Donald Trump Explains Why He Didn’t Let Speechwriter Meredith McIver Resign
time.com/…
www.cnn.com/...
Paul Manafort, who is essentially the campaign manager for the Trump campaign, professed no knowledge of Ms. McIver’s existence in his interview:
www.politico.com/…
In fact, in his presser Manafort didn’t even pronounce her name correctly, referring to her twice as Ms. McIntire as can be seen in the linked video.
I’ll have to admit, my first thought when seeing the letter was of Trump’s past episodes tricking the media with his Miller and Barron characters. But...no. There was no way he was that crazy, right? After some initial thought of looking into “Meredith McIver” I decided that it was not possible Trump could have pulled something like this in such a high stakes event as a presidential race. I decided to put my “House of Cards” ideas aside.
However, some had the same initial thoughts I did:
Serious question: has any news outlet seen or interviewed Meredith McIver? Asking because of the GOP candidate's history of using aliases.
Joy Reid and others had their antennea up (and to the best I know Joy never got an answer to her question), and some initial stories were skeptical of the McIver explanation as well:
“Is Meredith McIver real? People question whether Melania Trump speechwriter exists”
www.al.com/…
“No one believes Trump speechwriter Meredith McIver is real”
mashable.com/...
But after the initial skepticism, a number of stories came out in quick succession confirming that McIver was in fact a real person:
“Yes, Melania Speech Fall Woman Meredith McIver Is Real. Here’s Proof.”
www.slate.com/...
“Turns Out Meredith McIver Is Not Just Another One Of Trump’s Lies”
www.huffingtonpost.com/…
Even Snopes chimed in to reassure us that, no, Trump isn’t THAT crazy- McIver was real:
www.snopes.com/…
So, that settled it. While there was a substantial amount of initial skepticism, the media settled on the determination that McIver was not the long lost sister of John Barron and John Miller, and moved on. But at this point something bothered me. I read all the stories as to why McIver was a real person, and I felt there was something wrong. The McIver story did not add up to me, ironically after reading the stories that explained why she definitely existed. First, there was no evidence via the internet she had ever been seen in public (per a report or story). No stories of her giving an interview, or being at an event. She is the co-author with Trump of several best selling books, so this was surprising. Also, there did not seem to be much in the way of eyewitness confirmation, as will be discussed further below. Finally, a google search for images of McIver turned up only a few (literally one or two if I remember correctly at the time) images of McIver. This seemed to be an exceptional dearth of history for the best-selling co-author and close assistant (“like family”) of a flamboyant New York billionaire. But maybe she was an eccentric New York recluse, living in Trump Tower and keeping the nose to the grindstone twenty-four hours a day, never leaving work. It was curious enough that I decided to take a look.
I stumbled onto a few things, and then started working with @MeredithMctrump on Twitter. This individual was already researching Trump and had already found out a number of things. In addition to what is set out above as background, here is what we have discovered regarding McIver:
PROOF OF LIFE
1. Confirmation of existence through verifiable eyewitness
Outside of Donald Trump, I am not aware of any verifiable person that could independently identify Meredith McIver. Here are some possible candidates:
A. The ex-boyfriend
According to the New York Times Article by Jason Horowitz, McIver has an ex-boyfriend, Stephen Palitz, that was interviewed for the story.
www.nytimes.com/…
“She was always very, very interested in writing as an art form,” said an ex-boyfriend, Stephen Palitz.
He said Ms. McIver brought a dancer’s discipline, precision and rigor to her work. “She’s adept at crystallizing phrases and saying things in an elegant straightforward way.”
This is the only person I know of outside of Donald Trump that has indicated to a reporter in clear terms that he knew McIver personally, with direct contact. Unfortunately he is not a verifiable witness as things stand right now, because he has not spoken with anyone else and his story has not been confirmed in any way. He does appear to be an attorney living in New York. Internet searches seem to indicate he has been involved in eviction actions (if I remember correctly), but I have no knowledge of what his connection may be to Trump, or to McIver. The story does not provide how Horowitz came upon Palitz. Horowitz was not able to contact McIver for his story.
Obviously, further questioning of Palitz could go a long way to answering some of the questions regarding McIver. What parts of her background could he confirm beyond what he mentioned in the story? Does he have pictures of her, or other evidence to confirm his relationship? When did he last see her? As the only direct eyewitness of McIver that we now of outside of Trump, Palitz is a key part of this puzzle.
B. The Associate Publisher
Again, according to Horowitz:
Georgina Levitt, an associate publisher at Vanguard Press, which published a collection of Mr. Trump’s essays called “Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education In Business and Life” in 2010, recalled Ms. McIver — a voracious reader often seen with a bob haircut, tailored blazers and red lipstick — as a helpful liaison to Mr. Trump.
It is tempting to include Levitt as an eye witness of McIver, but based on how the passage is written that conclusion cannot be drawn. The story says Levitt remembers McIver as a helpful liaison and the description is an interjection. Therefore it is impossible to tell who provided the description. For all we know Trump provided the description and Levitt only knew her as a helpful liaison through e-mail or phone calls. We also have no idea when Levitt had interactions with Levitt, but presumably it would have been back in 2010 when she was working on the book. So we still have no eyewitness confirmation of McIver in recent years even if you accept Palitz and Levitt’s stories.
C. “Diamond” Donna Root
“Speaker and executive” McIver
To the best of my knowledge, no reporter has spoken with Diamond Donna. However, her website displays a testimonial from McIver:
Remember, they worked together on seminars across the country!
The picture of Diamond Donna and McIver appearing to be in Trumps office was posted on Donna’s website in 2011.
Obviously, the testimonial and picture would appear to make Root an eyewitness, but no one has been able to interview Root and verify the story so right now it is unverified. The picture provided on Root’s website (one of only two pics of McIver that was available on the internet immediately after the controversy), is highly suspect for reasons that will be addressed further in the discussion of the few available photographs of McIver below.
I’m not aware of any evidence indicating Root has seen McIver in recent years.
