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Experts: Political plagiarism not uncommon

Fallout from Melania Trump’s keynote speech at the Republican National Convention has now spread across social media like wildfire.

<p>CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 18: Melania Trump, wife of Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, delivers a speech on the first day of the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. </p>

Fallout from Melania Trump’s keynote speech at the Republican National Convention has now spread across social media like wildfire.

Trump has come under fire by critics who say she plagiarized a speech First Lady Michelle Obama gave in 2008.

Experts agree the plagiarism was clear.

"Michelle Obama gave a real nice speech in 2008. So nice it got repurposed a little in 2016," said Elizabeth Skewes, a journalism professor at CU-Boulder.

Skewes says while speeches from political spouses tend to follow similar talking points, in this case someone on Trump's speech-writing team should have caught and corrected the similarities.

"Even if she didn’t recognize the part that came from Michelle Obama, somebody on the staff should have and could have rewritten it or put that phrase in the words of Michelle Obama," Skewes said.

The Trump campaign has denied the plagiarism claims.

"We don't believe there's anything in that speech that doesn't reflect her thinking and we're comfortable that the words that she used are words that were personal to her," Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort said.

Skewes says plagiarism in politics has happened repeatedly over the years, and on both sides of the aisle.

Among the cases? Vice President Joe Biden, who had to drop out of the presidential race back in 1987 over claims he plagiarized the speech of British politician Neil Kinnock.

President Barack Obama was accused of stealing parts of a speech. In 2008,Obama was accused of plagiarizing a speech given by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick in 2006.

Skewes says there is some leeway given in in the differences between written and oral plagiarism, but she says in either case, the best thing for all politicians do when caught is to admit it and move on.

" I do think the Trump campaign should acknowledge the fact that its plagiarism and should acknowledge the fact that at least in this passage the words largely came from Mrs. Obama's speech and just apologize for that,"she said.

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