“the particular construction of that line “
This is the fault with your standard.
Mere ‘construction’ is not a sufficient standard.
Not a lawyer or a specialist in the field. Would be amenable of course to authoritative legal correction.
Personal moral standards vary, I believe a dispassionate person would take the same view as I: “Close but no cigar.”
That leaves the competency of the vetting process toward a different standard: “what can the media do with a plagiarism claim?”.
I don’t think that standard can ever predominate. The media can ‘claim’ whatever it wants.
Okay, then, what are you basing your judgment on that you believe it isn’t plagiarism? My degree has a great deal to do with original writing, and avoiding the plagiarizing of the words and ideas of others.
In that, the specific construction of a thought IS very important.
There are so many different ways of saying very similar things. Melania’s line used the same construction and almost exactly the same words.
But this is nothing next to all the actual SERIOUS issues and scandals that are country is dealing with.