Plagiarism charges mar Melania Trump's moment

CLEVELAND -- This was to have been Melania Trump's moment, her first real introduction to American voters who'd seen her by her husband's side for months but had barely heard her speak.

But within moments of Melania Trump's triumphant appearance on the Republican National Convention stage, accusations of plagiarism surfaced, eclipsing her achievement in the latest stumble by the Trump campaign.

Trump's advisers defiantly denied the charge Tuesday, though the word-for-word overlap was obvious between Melania Trump's remarks the night before and two passages in Michelle Obama's 2008 speech to the Democratic convention in Denver. How it had come about remained unclear.

Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort called the criticism "just absurd" and said the issue had been "totally blown out of proportion."

Manafort also tried to blame Hillary Clinton, saying on CNN, "This is, once again, an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she seeks out to demean her and take her down."

The passages in question came near the beginning of Melania Trump's nearly 15-minute speech.

In one example, Melania Trump said: "From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect."

Eight years ago, Michelle Obama said: "And 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, that you treat people with dignity and respect."

There were similar overlaps in a passage dealing with conveying to children there is no limit to what they can achieve. Melania Trump's address was otherwise distinct from the speech Michelle Obama gave when her husband was being nominated for president.