Speechwriter defends recycling lines for Donald Trump Jr

For a moment, it looked like last night’s events at the Republican national convention were copying the controversy of the previous night at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.

A day after the party's quadrennial gathering was rocked by Melania Trump's suspected lifting of portions of Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic convention address, eagle-eyed commentators spotted striking similarities between Donald Trump Jr's words last night and an earlier published text.

Comics at "The Daily Show" were the first to twig the connection between the 38-year-old Trump heir's well-received words to the convention last night and those published by conservative commentator Frank Buckley in an essay in a conservative publication in May that was itself taken from his book, "The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America," published in April.

“Our schools used to be an elevator to the middle class,” said Mr Trump, in one of the most memorable lines of his prime-time critique of Barack Obama’s America.

“Now they’re stalled on the ground floor. They’re like Soviet-era department stores that are run for the benefit of the clerks and not the customers.”

In an article for The American Conservative magazine entitled “Trump vs the New Class”, Mr Buckley, a self-declared supporter of Mr Trump, wrote: “What should be an elevator to the upper class is stalled on the ground floor”.

He continued two lines later: “Our schools and universities are like the old Soviet department stores whose mission was to serve the interests of the sales clerks and not the customer.”

But Mr Buckley, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia, quickly put any controversy to bed when he revealed his role in the drafting of the speech.

“Except it wasn’t stealing,” he tweeted, later clarifying to The New York Daily News that he had in fact written Mr Trump’s speech himself.

“There’s not an issue. It’s not plagiarism. It’s just what speechwriters do,” he said.

In her Monday night headline speech, the Republican presidential nominee’s wife Melania spoke about values and hard work, lines that appeared to be taken from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech.

“From a young age, my parents impress on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond; that you do what you say,” said the 47-year-old would-be Republican first lady.

The current Democratic first lady spoke similar words when the then Illinois senator Barack Obama was nominated to be the party's presidential candidate in Denver.

“Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: like, you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do,” she said.

The Trump camp and Republican officials delivered a confusing response, saying that there was “no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech” but that these were “common words and values”.

Republican governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, a senior aide to Mr Trump, acknowledged that seven per cent of Mrs Trump's speech may have been similar to Mrs Obama's.

Sean Spicer, chief strategist of the Republican national committee, said that "about 70 words, three passages" of Mrs Trump's speech were phrases in common with Mrs Obama's address.

He went on to compare the offending parts of Mrs Trump's speech with similar words used by musicians John Legend and Kid Rock as well as in the children's book, My Little Pony.

"Melania Trump said, 'the strength of your dreams and willingness to work for them.' Twilight Sparkle from 'My Little Pony' said, 'This is your dream. Anything you can do in your dreams, you can do now,'" Mr Spicer told CNN, quoting the cartoon pony.