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Meredith McIver apologized in a statement sent out by the campaign and said Donald and Melania Trump did not accept her resignation.
The statement comes more than 36 hours
after reporters uncovered striking similarities between the two speeches during which time the controversy cast a shadow over Trump's
nominating convention and distracted from coverage of the lineup of
speakers.
McIver explained that she
included the passages from Michelle Obama's speech after listening to
Melania Trump read passages from the 2008 address.
"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." She
said the Trump family rejected her resignation, because, "Mr. Trump
told me that people make innocent mistakes and that we learn and grow
from these experiences."
McIver
said she "asked" to put out a statement because she was concerned about
how the controversy was "distracting from Mr. Trump's historic campaign
for president and Melania's beautiful message and presentation."
"I
apologize for the confusion and hysteria my mistake has caused. Today,
more than ever, I am honored to work for such a great family," McIver
said in the statement. The Trump
campaign has refused to acknowledge the incident as plagiarism, instead
slamming the media and insisting it was moving on, with no plans to fire
any staffers.
"The speech was very effective and
communicated those feelings," Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said
Tuesday on CNN's "New Day." "The controversy you're talking about is
not meaningful at all. She's not a candidate for office. She was
expressing her personal feelings about her country and her husband and
why he's best for the United States."
Manafort
on Wednesday agreed Melania Trump's speech used "similar words" to
Obama's and insisted, "I'm not lying about anything." The
Republican National Committee also boosted the Trump campaign's
defense, with its communications director Sean Spicer slapping down
plagiarism charges by pointing to similar words and themes in everything from John Legend songs to "My Little Pony."
Donald
Trump, for his part, pressed forward with the strategy of attacking the
media as late as an hour before the campaign statement Wednesday.
"The
media is spending more time doing a forensic analysis of Melania's
speech than the FBI spent on Hillary's emails," Trump said in a tweet. McIver
has served as a ghostwriter for the Trumps in the past, helping Donald
Trump write some of his books, including "Trump: Think Like a
Billionaire."
The New York Times identified McIver as a former ballet dancer and English major.