A Freedom of Information Act request may have finally put to rest the controversy surrounding the crowd size at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, a sore spot for the administration right out of the gate after taking office.
Defenders of the administration insist to this day that statements made by the President and his then-spokesman Sean Spicer were correct, and that the size of the crowd was indeed “the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period,” as Spicer claimed in the days following the January 2017 ceremony.
But new information obtained by the Guardian newspaper, released by the inspector general of the interior department after an FOIA request from the publication, shows that the official images provided by the administration were in fact cropped to maximize the appearance of the crowd size at the behest of the President.
From the Guardian:
The photographer cropped out empty space ‘where the crowd ended’ for a new set of pictures requested by Trump on the first morning of his presidency, after he was angered by images showing his audience was smaller than Barack Obama’s in 2009.”
In fact, the crowd was smaller than even Obama’s reelection inauguration attendance, and ranks lower than even Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993. Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking site PolitiFact put the estimate — since the National Parks Service no longer releases official numbers — at 300,000 to 500,000 people, the lower end of which would represent just a third of Obama’s first inaugural address.
The FOIA report paints a picture of a spokesman desperate to fulfill the wishes of a demanding boss:
The newly released files said Spicer was closely involved in the effort to obtain more favourable photographs. He called Reynolds immediately after the acting director spoke with Trump and then again at 3pm shortly before the new set of photographs was sent to the White House, investigators heard. Another official reported being called by Spicer.”
Trump was still, some would say, obsessed with “proving” the “actual” size of his inauguration crowd by the time he sat down for the first official White House interview as President with ABC’s David Muir:
The identity of the person who set off the inspector general’s investigation was redacted in the final report from the interior department, although the Guardian notes that the request was prompted by a complaint from a supporter of the President, who accused the National Parks Service of attempting to undermine Trump. The report contained no evidence that this was the case.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
