Almost immediately, the left began to downplay and besmirch the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It seems as though they have a problem acknowledging vital victories when doing so reflects positively on President Trump. Democrats and the media have even questioned why Democrats weren’t informed of the raid. Nothing was off-limits. Pete Souza, the former official White House photographer under Barack Obama, took to Twitter to suggest that the photos released by the White House of the Situation Room during the raid were staged.

The raid, as reported, took place at 3:30PM Washington time. The photo, as shown in the camera IPTC data, was taken at "17:05:24". https://t.co/XV0MFfFiTt — Pete Souza (@PeteSouza) October 27, 2019

IPTC refers to the standard photo metadata that can be embedded in images. Many of his liberal followers fell in line, echoing claims that the photos were staged propaganda. Souza rather quickly admitted that his implication may have been wrong.

It's entirely possible that the raid was still going on at 5:05pm. Before drawing definite conclusions about the photo, reporters need to nail down the actual timeline of the raid. https://t.co/Iw6tQ1ceGV — Pete Souza (@PeteSouza) October 27, 2019

In what may have been an attempt to change the subject, Souza then tweeted out his photos of the Osama bin Laden raid, before eventually backtracking on his original tweet.

Just to be clear, I didn't say it was staged. Trump himself said he didn't arrive to the Situation Room until "around 5pm". So it's definitely possible the photo was taken during the raid. https://t.co/h3yx8BbLAT — Pete Souza (@PeteSouza) October 27, 2019

Souza may have done a little research by that point and in addition to acknowledging that Trump never claimed to have been present in the Situation Room at 3:30 p.m. ET, he also must have discovered the operation that included the raid lasted around two hours—backing up the legitimacy of the photos.

It’s curious why Souza would even make such an accusation, given that his infamous photo of the bin Laden raid in the Situation Room may actually have been staged, according to Accuracy in Media, and as details emerged about the raid, it became clear that the official Obama White House story about what happened had been embellished. In fact, according to Panetta, it was Navy SEALs, not Obama, that ultimately made the final decision to kill bin Laden. Obama reportedly was playing cards in another room rather than actively monitoring the raid.

This story has been updated.