One day after the inauguration, White House press secretary Sean Spicer lambasted reporters in the briefing room and said, falsely, that Trump’s inaugural had drawn the “largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period.” | AP Photo Park Service behaved appropriately regarding Trump crowd reports, watchdog finds

The feud between the National Park Service and the Trump White House appeared to ease on Monday after a watchdog found that NPS officials did not alter inauguration crowd size estimates and that public affairs officials did not leak information about a phone call between President Donald Trump and the agency’s acting director.

The NPS was wrapped up in the controversy that overwhelmed the first days of Trump’s administration after the president and his aides claimed record crowds at his inauguration and railed against those who cast doubt on the claim.


One day after the inauguration, White House press secretary Sean Spicer lambasted reporters in the briefing room and said, falsely, that Trump’s inaugural had drawn the “largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period.”

The Park Service became the target of Trump’s ire after its Twitter account retweeted side-by-side images that appeared to show a paltry crowd for Trump’s inauguration compared to former President Barack Obama.

The feud deepened when reports leaked of a phone call Trump placed the day after the inauguration to Acting NPS Director Michael Reynolds in which the president allegedly ordered the agency to produce images to help prove his claims of crowd size.

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

But a report from the Department of the Interior Inspector General released on Monday found that NPS employees did not alter crowd size records and the NPS public affairs officials did not leak information to the press about the phone call.

The report does not make clear who requested the investigation, which was initiated in February.

The watchdog explores whether an official with the NPS National Mall and Memorial Parks (NAMA) had inappropriately asked employees to scrub attendance records when responding to requests from both the media and the White House about the crowd size.

“We found no evidence to substantiate the allegation that the NAMA official asked staff to alter crowd size information,” the IG report said. “The official told us that she instructed the staff not to include crowd size estimates in the reports because she wanted to make sure that the reports did not contain nonfactual references to crowd size. She explained that the NPS did not have the necessary methodology in place to do an accurate crowd count and, since the Million Man March in 1995, had made it a practice not to collect or provide any crowd size information for events held at the National Mall.”

A second point the IG dug into was whether a public affairs employee had leaked information about a call between Reynolds and Trump, in which Trump allegedly ordered the acting NPS director to release additional photos of the crowd and apparently vented about the agency’s Twitter account posting the side-by-side photos.

The complaint, apparently from another NPS employee to the IG, was made after an NPS employee allegedly commented about the need to “refute” Spicer’s Jan. 21 claims and said he disagreed with Spicer’s characterization. The IG’s report concluded that neither that employee, or other members of the public affairs team had disclosed information about the phone call and that “Reynolds stated that he did not consider his conversation with the President protected information.”

The employee who was accused acknowledged that he took issue with three of Spicer’s comments that he considered false: that the inauguration was the first time protective grass coverings had been used; that the crowd extended from the steps of the Capitol to the Washington monument; and that the crowd was the biggest ever at an inauguration.

“The public affairs employee recalled thinking that NPS would need to prepare a response to address Spicer’s statements; he explained that based on his experience, he expected the NPS to get questions about them from the media,” the report found. “Soon after the press conference ended, the employee said, NPS prepared a written response to Spicer’s statements, which was vetted through the NPS and DOI Offices of Communications, so that public affairs staff would be ready for any media inquiries. We confirmed the employee’s account with an NPS communications official.”

The report confirmed that Trump did in fact contact Reynolds by phone on Jan. 21 and “request photographs of the inauguration.” The NPS sent six pictures to the White House, the report found.

The White House later hung a different picture of the inauguration crowd in the area near the press room. The picture is incorrectly dated Jan. 21, 2017.

