









Last May, when Donald Trump met with House Speaker Paul Ryan at Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington D.C., anti-Trump protesters "swarmed" the area.

Well, maybe not so much. It turns out news reports at the time seem to have exaggerated the truth.

That's one thing we learned from newly-leaked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails. Democrats had tried to organize a much larger turnout but failed. They were surprised and delighted by reporters' mischaracterizations of the event.

"Tv coverage of protest great" declared DNC communications official T.J. Helmstetter in an email to DNC National Communications Director Luis Miranda on May 12, 2016.

[quote]"Shockingly good coverage despite abysmal turnout. CNN and MSNBC using prominently."[/quote]

Miranda responds: "Yes, but going forward, when our allies screw up and don't deliver bodies in time, we either send all our interns out there or we stay away from it.. we don't want to own a bad picture."

"The Hill" published a story by a writer named Harper Neidig that made it sound like the area was crawling with Trump opponents and supporters. The story was accompanied by a photo showing four anti-Trump protesters holding signs.

"The Washington Post" published a story by a writer named Elise Tieback that also implied Trump's presence had created unprecedented disruption, particularly by drawing a large group of protesters. She declared, "In each successive visit to the RNC, Trump is attracting bigger crowds, bigger protests, bigger media attention. Everyone crams into the small two-block area that surrounds the RNC building, many people just taking in the spectacle. Thursday’s meeting between Trump and Ryan (R-Wis.) was no exception."

"Abysmal turnout" but "great" news coverage.

[ilink url="https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/13366"]Read the DNC email [/ilink]

Below is a YouTube video that shows the size of the anti-Trump crowd compared to the collection of news media.