THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Mrs. Donald Trump made a speech at the Republican convention. It was composed, in part, of segments copied from another speech made at another convention without saying who first said it.After severals days of running around blaming everyone they possibly could, the Trumpoons have finally settled on a scapegoat for this horrid failure.

A longtime employee of the Trump Organization took responsibility for lifting two passages, from a 2008 speech by Michelle Obama, for Melania Trump’s address on Monday at the Republican National Convention, saying that it was an innocent mistake.

The employee, Meredith McIver, who has worked on some of Mr. Trump’s books, is the first person to publicly apologize for an error at any point during the Trump campaign. The New York Times on Tuesday night identified Ms. McIver as playing a role in the speech, although the extent of her involvement was unclear, and the Trump campaign declined to answer questions. Ms. McIver was brought in after Ms. Trump discarded the majority of a draft written by two professional speechwriters.

Ms. McIver identified herself in an unusual statement posted on the Trump campaign’s website, hours after the chief strategist, Paul Manafort, said the issue was manufactured by the news media. And it breathed new life into a story now in its third day.

“In working with Melania on her recent first lady speech, we discussed many people who inspired her and messages she wanted to share with the American people,” Ms. McIver wrote.

“A person she has always liked is Michelle Obama,” she added. “Over the phone,” Ms. Trump “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 that she had “offered my resignation to Mr. Trump and the Trump family but they rejected it,” and that “Mr. Trump told me that people make innocent mistakes and we learn and grow from these experiences.”

And after all his surrogates were promising to drink the blood and eat the guts of all those they choose to hate, The Great Orange Saviourgot to show his magnaminity by not accepting the scapegoat's resignation. That was mighty Orange of you, Mr. Trump