Chances that Melania Trump didn't plagiarize Michelle Obama? Less than 1 in a trillion.


It looks like it's pretty safe to rule out any chance that Melania Trump's plagiarism of Michelle Obama's convention speech was an accident. Despite some defenders saying Melania Trump lifted words "coincidentally," the Washingtonian used Turnitin.com to find that "the likelihood that a 16-word match," like the one between Trump's speech and Obama's, is "'just a coincidence' is less than 1 in a trillion." The longest match between the two speeches is 23 words:
Nevertheless, Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort proposed that the similarities between the speeches are indeed that one-in-1-trillion chance. "These are common words," he argued.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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