Fact check: Images falsely claim to show this week's pro-Trump demonstrations

McKenzie Sadeghi, USA TODAY
·4 min read

The claim: Images shows pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., in January

As thousands gathered this week at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to protest election results, some users took to social media to share images claiming to depict the pro-Trump demonstration.

"3 hours ago-and they're still coming! Stop the Steal!" reads a Jan. 5 Facebook post with hundreds of shares, along with an image of a large crowd.

Another user shared the same image on Jan. 5 and wrote, "Washington DC this afternoon. (Stop the Steal protest is tomorrow)."

A similar image of thousands of people gathered in the streets of Washington was also posted to Facebook with the caption, "What the Fake News doesn't want to show you right now!! Stop The Steal!" The post has over 900 shares and was shared on Jan. 6.

USA TODAY reached out for comment to the users who shared the images.

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Photo is from 2018 March for Our Lives rally

The first image claiming to show Trump supporters in D.C. is actually a photo from a 2018 March For Our Lives rally.

The photo was taken by Washington Post photographer Salwan Georges on March 24, 2018, with the caption: "Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators crowd downtown Washington on Saturday for the March for Our Lives rally to call for stricter gun-control measures.

Getty Images photographer Shannon Finney also captured a similar image from the gun control rally.

The rally followed the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead, USA TODAY reported. Organizers estimated that 800,000 protesters attended the demonstration.

Georges recently took to Twitter to clarify that he took the photo in 2018 and that it does not depict protests taking place this year in Washington.

Just last month, USA TODAY debunked a similar image claiming to show pro-Trump protesters at a D.C. rally. The image in the social media posts also falsely used the 2018 March for Our Lives photo.

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Second image is from 2017 Women's March

The second image used in the claims is of the 2017 Women's March in Washington, not pro-Trump protesters this week.

The image appears on the site of Vanessa Wruble, a co-founder of the Women's March, and was taken on Jan. 21, 2017, by Kerry Fleming, who also captured an aerial-view video of the demonstration.

The rally was five hours long, and D.C. officials estimated that the turnout was at around 500,000, USA TODAY reported in 2017.

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Our rating: False

The images claiming to show pro-Trump protests in Washington, D.C., this week are FALSE, based on our research. One of the images is from the 2018 March for Our Lives rally and the photographer has confirmed that the photo was not made recently. This image has previously been misused to depict pro-Trump rallies. A second photo used in the claims shows the 2017 Women's March.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Images falsely claim to show pro-Trump demonstrations

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