In response to a Freedom Of Information Act request from BuzzFeed and other sites, the National Park Service—the real one, not one of those rogue offshoots—has released a bunch of official photos showing the crowd at Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Much to nobody’s surprise, it’s a relatively paltry gathering that pales in comparison to similar photos from Barack Obama’s two inaugurations, proving once and for all that Trump and Sean Spicer were being predictably stupid and disingenuous when they suggested that the audience was bigger than it ever was for Obama. Here are some of the images from BuzzFeed so you can do the math yourself:
Now, fans of Machiavellian scheming might argue that the Trump administration allowed these photos to be released so it could distract people from his latest attempt to spit on the Constitution with a new-and-improved Muslim ban, but that argument assumes that the Trump administration is actually capable of doing anything other than blindly lashing out at the people and things that offend its sensitive, snowflake-esque demeanor. In reality, Trump probably has no idea that these photos were released, because he’s too busy humming and plugging his ears while Steve Bannon reminds everyone on staff that they’ve never met anyone from Russia.
You can see more photos of the crowd (as well as photos from Obama’s inaugurations, which had much bigger crowds) over at BuzzFeed.