There’s nothing like turning a minor story into a three day disaster to show America how great your administration would be at handling a crisis. But while the Trump campaign may have finally stopped accusing Hillary, the media, and … words long enough to admit they have a problem. It turns out they still have a problem.
Donald Trump's campaign finally admitted on Wednesday that parts of Melania Trump's convention speech had been plagiarized, releasing a brief statement from the person responsible.
Writer Meredith McIver stepped up to take the blame. And not for the first time.
In a 2007 deposition, Mr. Trump was grilled over whether he had overstated his debt by billions of dollars in a couple of his co-written books to make his comeback seem more significant.
He acknowledged the exaggeration, but the mistake, he said, was not his. “This is somebody that wrote it, probably Meredith McIver,” Mr. Trump said.
But there’s a bigger problem than Trump’s re-use of McIver as a “get out of mistakes free” card.
Notice the letterhead of [McIver’s] statement: The Trump Organization, which is to say Donald Trump's personal business. And notice how McIver describes herself: As an employee of the Trump Organization, not the campaign.
If Trump used corporate resources to write a political speech, that could be illegal.
Thursday, Jul 21, 2016 · 5:48:16 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
A Super PAC has filed an FEC complaint alleging misconduct on the part of the Trump campaign.
"This incident is reminiscent of the John Edwards campaign finance scandal, which likewise involved work paid for by a corporation for a presidential campaign. As such, it is very troubling," Jon Cooper, chairman of the Coalition, said.
"On the face of it, this looks like a corporate violation," explained Lawrence Noble, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center. And that is "a violation of federal law. It can result in civil penalties to the corporation and the campaign." If the campaign used corporate resources "willingly and knowingly," the offense is a criminal one.
But Trump has made regular use of his corporations, hotels, and other resources. And he hasn't hesitated to pay himself for it.
So long as McIver was hired and paid by the campaign to act as a speechwriter for Melania, there’s probably no violation. Only this time it appears Trump may have forgotten to bill Trump.
The letter contains no suggestion that McIver was a campaign employee at any point. Noble points out that she offered to resign her position, but which position? For it to have been legal, she was working for the campaign -- but it seems clear that she offered to resign from her theoretically unrelated Trump Organization job. What we would have expected is a letter on campaign letterhead talking about how McIver as a campaign employee accidentally included parts of Obama's speech. None of that is the case.
FEC records show no payments to McIver from the campaign. (FEC)
Nothing like another example of Trump’s ability to run things smoothly and handle problems quickly.