Meredith McIver: The mystery of the Trump employee behind Melania’s plagiarised RNC 2016 speech

A ghost writer or a ghost?

“The Mystery of Meredith McIver”: it sounds like the title of a badly written novel, the same kind of formulaic prose to be found in Donald Trump’s books or, perhaps, in his wife’s speeches.

If we are to believe the Trump campaign, the blame for one of the largest and most obvious cases of plagiarism in the history of American politics comes down to one woman who is hiding in the shadows.

The pleasingly alliterative name of Donald Trump’s employee, the woman who supposedly helped to write Melania Trump’s speech for the RNC and which turned out to contain passages that matched Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech word for word, has no verified Twitter account and no LinkedIn profile.

At the time of writing, no credible news outlet has tracked down Meredith McIver.

Mr Trump, normally so keen to show off his “beautiful ladies”, has kept this ghost writer hauntingly silent.

There is growing speculation that the name is simply an alias, a fictional name for the Trump campaign to hide behind as Republicans and Democrats alike are furious that the potential First Lady has fluffed her first major appearance.

Is this another of Mr Trump’s scams, surrounding himself with make believe friends?

The press have barely recovered from the discovery that Mr Trump’s so-called spokesperson, John Barron, who gave frequent over-the-phone interviews and exposed all kind of personal details about the businessman, was Mr Trump himself.

But it turns out that Meredith McIver, who released this profusely apologetic and rather absurd statement, has not just written one bad speech.

According to her author page, she has co-written books including “Trump 101”, “Trump Thinks Like A Billionaire” and “Trump Never Give Up” - the latter title being horrendously grammatically incorrect but perhaps a good strategy for the aftermath of this plagiarism faux pax.

Everyone, put your thinking caps on. Her name begins with M. The letter “M”.

Which other employee amongst the Trump campaign begins with M? Not Hope Hicks. Not Corey Lewanski. Not Paul Manaf—

What an irony that Ms McIver could - who knows - turn out to be a man: the Republicans do so little to support gender fluidity.