Donald Trump’s presidential campaign reminds me of a hurricane. It blows through, tears everything up, and leaves a disastrous mess in its wake. Even more, it denigrates everything, speaks many falsehoods and appears to be built on fake...everything.
It’s all too much - from the Donald’s legions of fake Twitter and Facebook fans that rabidly respond and retweet every bit of craziness he posts, to his fake alleged super-billionaire status, to his fake “scapeghost” that supposedly wrote that plagiarized speech for Melania. It goes back as far as December, when a totally fake doctor’s note saying he was fit as a fiddle was accepted as gospel.
Today, I’d like to dig into the speechwriter issue. While I wrote about Meredith McIver briefly last week, it’s worth noting all the (non) developments surrounding her that have occurred since then.
Lies and Spinning First
Donald Trump’s campaign offered no less than six different excuses, as noted in this article by Olivia Nuzzi.
“The official word from the Trump operation, at various points since Monday night, is that Melania wrote her speech, and she did not write her speech, and a team of writers wrote her speech, and her speech was not plagiarism, and if it was plagiarism, perhaps Michelle Obama had plagiarized My Little Pony, because the speech was full of common platitudes, and it was all Hillary Clinton’s fault, and Michelle Obama did not invent the English language, and OK, fine, it was plagiarism, but it was all a big mistake and no harm was meant by any of it.”
During the period Olivia details above, we heard nary a peep from the Donald himself. Very odd, considering his normally over-active social media profiles, notably Twitter, and to a lesser extent, Facebook.
Resort to phoniness
Suddenly, the Donald was back with a vengeance. His “long-time, loyal employee”, Meredith McIver, had admitted to helping Melania with her speech, and not checking it against previous speeches. (Because that is the way that professionals, much less presidential candidates, should operate?) What’s more, she offered Donald her resignation, and sweet man that he is, he told her that he could not accept it and that everybody makes mistakes.
Now, there are multitudes of people that do not for one minute believe this narrative, especially after a wide range of social media profiles for Meredith suddenly appeared online, complete with horribly photoshopped images.
This was certainly a distraction from all the other train wrecks going on within the Trump campaign, but they are sticking to it even now. The @iMeredithMcIver Twitter account tweets on a daily basis and even answers questions, as if it were a real person. Which it is - just NOT Meredith McIver.
Since July 20th, this account has been tweeting all manner of gibberish, including that she’ll be making the rounds on morning talk shows, etc. Hasn’t happened yet, and probably will never happen.
Heck, Fake Meredith is even trying to raise some funds for her woefully broke “boss” on her Twitter page, by offering signed copies of one of the books she supposedly co-authored with Trump, for a mere $184.
Gideon Resnick wrote an article, Who’s Impersonating Meredith McIver? about Meredith yesterday, one in which he discusses speaking with Fake Meredith by email. He heard that “Meredith” of the Twitter account above is actually a paid Trump-stumper by the name of Brian, who was engaged by none other than Trump Communications Director Jason Miller.
The McIver account itself did not respond to direct messages requesting more information, but someone claiming to run it sent an extensive email to The Daily Beast claiming that the RNC hired them.
“I worked for the Trump campaign in Cleveland last week, doing some light digital work as needed,” the individual, who identified himself only as “Brian,” wrote. “On Wednesday, as the statement was released regarding the plagiarism controversy, I was approached by campaign staffers to create a Twitter account for this persona as part of what was described as a ‘grassroots’ effort to help squash the scandal before it could become something bigger.
While I think they believed the statement would be widely accepted, they apparently wanted to ensure there was something to fall back on as people began to inevitably ask questions.”
“Brian” claimed that Jason Miller, the communications director for the campaign, had written out some explicit instructions for tweets and put them on an Excel sheet. “Brian” provided a screenshot of the alleged spreadsheet to The Daily Beast but would not provide proof of contracting by the campaign. Miller did not comment on the veracity of the claim.
“Sometime in the afternoon of the 20th, someone on the communications team—not Jason Miller but someone below him—asked me and a couple other digital people to get the Twitter started because apparently, they knew there would be questions,” claimed “Brian.”
He did not respond to further questions.
The above exchange, to me, says that someone besides Meredith McIver is in charge of the social profiles and is beginning to crack. But in no way does it prove that Meredith is still a part of the Trump Organization.
Building Meredith McIver Online
Additionally, someone has done a reasonably good job of rounding up the tiniest mentions of Meredith’s name on the internet to put together a Wikipedia page that seems convincing enough. Unless you look at the dates of the sources at the bottom and see that they are dated or retrieved on July 20th-July 23rd. Someone was obviously building a history for Meredith. There is a mention of her in a 2007 Guardian newspaper article, but the author, Gaby Wood, does not remember what she looked like. She was simply one of Donald’s assistants, but her first and last name made it in to this article for some reason?!
That is kind of interesting in itself, but then Meredith was blamed in a deposition, also in 2007, for overstating Donald’s debt in the book, How to Get Rich, during a civil lawsuit. Seems pretty convenient that Meredith was noted in that article, and then was his scapegoat in a deposition. And no, Meredith was never deposed in the trial. The fake Meredith Twitter account went so far as to strike up a conversation with Gaby Wood, asking how she’d been. “She” did not respond to Gaby’s request for an interview.
Other mentions of Meredith online are limited to references to her writing in Trump’s books and her Democratic voter registration. (Pretty sure you can register online to vote!) A Snopes fact check decided that voter registration was enough proof for them that she was alive and well, and they declared her so. Once Snopes gave the story their blessing, mainstream media seems to have lost interest and moved on to Donald’s other issues - the fight with a Gold Star mom, picking on babies, and the seeming implosion within his campaign due to - Donald!
No Meredith sightings
On July 26th, the Daily Kos wrote a lengthy Meredith McIver story. They pointed out that Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, said “Nobody in campaign knows who she is.” And he mispronounced her name twice in the press conference held to lay all the blame at her feet. They also determined, rightly so, the incompetence of the campaign and/or Trump for allowing changes to a major speech without any vetting.
Daily Kos also wondered aloud, “ Assuming the reality of Ms. McIver, what is her version of the story? Was the letter coerced? Was she even really involved in the speech, or was the letter a complete cover for a Trump family member or Melania?” This article also questions FEC violations - if she exists and did work for the campaign, there is no documentation proving that. That is a violation of campaign law.
From here, Kos goes on to talk about the black hole that is Meredith McIver’s online identity. Lies, dead ends and trumped- up information is all you can find.
While I cannot rehash all of the inconsistencies surrounding Ms. McIver here, if you go to the Twitter handle @MeredithMcTrump, you can read the entire saga from the beginning. Here is @MeredithMcTrump’s statement from yesterday that spells out her concerns about the entire situation:
Yes, it matters!
So what this insane situation boils down to is this - none of it makes sense. A bestselling author living in Manhattan is a total ghost? With Trump’s track record, it is far more likely that Meredith is his catch-all scapegoat, and that the organization pumps up her name every now and then to keep her handy in this kind of situation. She may even BE a real person, but most people that have been following this story with their eyes open believe she’s either totally made up, or she was an employee or acquaintence long ago.
Are you listening New York Times? Washington Post? CNN? ABC? MSNBC? Proving Meredith McIver is a figment of Donald’s imagination would show how casually he can lie and fake when his back is against the wall. Is this the kind of man we want for President?
On the other hand, Fox News - you could score major trust points for your candidate of choice by proving she does exist! There are many valid reasons for the press to push, HARD, for an interview with the elusive Ms. McIver.