In a strange bit of déjà vu even for American political theater, a successful speech by a Trump family member at the Republican National Convention was overshadowed by accusations of plagiarism for the second night in a row, this time the passage apparently lifted from a column by Frank Buckley.
But just as quickly as the charges became public, another twist to the saga occurred, as Buckley immediately put an end to the allegations by saying he had written the speech himself for Donald Trump, Jr.,
CNN reported.
Donald Trump Jr.'s address on Tuesday night greatly entertained and moved the crowd as he spoke of his father's candidacy for the presidency.
But shortly thereafter, "The Daily Show" pointed out that two of the speech's most memorable sentences, which talked of American education becoming a failure like the ossified Soviet system that was unresponsive to the needs of citizens, was virtually verbatim to what Buckley wrote in a column a few months ago.
This accusation came just a night after the controversy over Melania Trump's well-received speech that afterwards was revealed to have apparently featured plagiarized passages from Michelle Obama's address in 2008.
But just as it seemed that Trump's campaign was in for more ridicule from its detractors, Buckley nipped the criticism in the bud, telling
Business Insider, "I was a speechwriter for this speech . . . so there's not a plagiarism issue."
Trump Jr. slammed critics, calling the accusations
"ridiculous" and saying that the whole affair just shows that "people are trying to find a story where it doesn't exist. They have an agenda, they've made up their mind, it's as simple as that."
Trump's senior campaign communications aide Jason Miller said the accusations were an attempt by Clinton to embarrass the Republican nominee, saying: "Nice try Clinton machine . . . Your time would be better spent searching for Crooked Hillary's missing emails rather than disparaging a real American Patriot."