A US government photographer told investigators that he intentionally cropped photos of President Donald Trump's inauguration to make the audience look larger, according to documents released on Friday, 7 September.
The documents are from an investigation, conducted last year, into what happened after the National Park Service (NPS) shared a social media post comparing the crowds that attended the inaugurations of Trump and former President Barack Obama.
The Guardian, after accessing those documents, reports that the identity of the photographer and many other government officials are redacted. The documents also recall a telephonic conversation between Trump and then acting park service director Michael Reynolds on the former’s first day in office.
Reynolds told investigators that the President “asked him to provide pictures of the inauguration”. Trump’s then-press secretary, Sean Spicer, also reached out to the park service asking “for NPS to provide photographs in which it appeared the inauguration crowd filled the majority of the space...”
According to The Guardian, at least two park service photographers were requested for additional photographs. One of them told the investigators that after Trump and Reynolds spoke, he cropped the wide-angle photos (also being shared by the media which displeased Trump), including removing “the bottom were the crowd ended.”
After the NPS posted the photo showing a parse crowd, Trump claimed that’s not what it looked like from where he was standing on stage.
Spicer said in a press conference the following evening that it was the “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration... Period.”
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