Trump inauguration photos edited to make crowd look bigger after president intervened, documents reveal

The newly-released documents provide an inside look at Donald Trump's first presidential scandal

Photographs of Donald Trump's inauguration were edited to make the crowds look larger after an intervention from the president, according to newly-released documents.

Photos were edited by a government photographer, after Mr Trump complained about initial images indicating his crowd was smaller than that of predecessor Barack Obama's first swearing-in.

The documents were obtained by The Guardian through a Freedom of Information Act request to the inspector general of the US Interior Department and appeared to confirm previous reports about calls the president made his first day in office.

Mr Trump reportedly shared an "early-morning" phone call in January 2017 with Michael Reynolds, the acting director of the National Park Service (NPS), to complain about the photographs he had seen from the government agency.

The photos, which had already circulated across social media, showed his inaugural crowd from the day before not reaching even nearly as far as that of Mr Obama's.

The new White House had spent the large part of Mr Trump's first day in office falsely claiming his inauguration was the most-viewed in history, with the largest audience in attendance in Washington.

Despite numerous inauguration crowd sizes appearing larger than Mr Trump’s, the administration pressed on, with the documents revealing that former White House press secretary Sean Spicer repeatedly called NPS throughout the day "in pursuit of the more flattering photographs".

The scene of Donald Trump's inauguration as US President on January 20 2017 (L) and Barack Obama's first swearing in ceremony in 2009 (Reuters (L) Getty (R))

Eventually, a government photographer associated with NPS edited pictures from the inauguration to crop out areas that had not been filled by audience members. The documents did not reveal whether or not the NPS or another government entity has released those edited photos to the public.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A previous inspector general’s report published in June 2017 made no mention of the president’s direct involvement in the controversy, which garnered national headlines for several weeks.

Mr Trump complained about "a lot of empty areas" he had seen from his inauguration in photos released by NPS, according to one communications official whose name had been redacted from the newly-released files.

That official reportedly told investigators "she got the impression that President Trump wanted to see pictures that appeared to depict more spectators in the crowd."

The NPS photographer also told investigators he was asked to “edit a few more” of his inauguration photos from an unidentified official, though it remains unclear where exactly that request had originated.

Mr Spicer was asking NPS officials for photos that “accurately represented the inauguration crowd size,” according to another person whose name was redacted — a statement that official interpreted as "a request for NPS to provide photographs in which it appeared the inauguration crowd filled the majority of the space in the photograph," which, of course, did not exist.