Former White House press secretary Katie Zacharia is facing fresh scrutiny over photographs she posted with Donald Trump after a blurred map visible on the president’s desk appeared to have been digitally removed from a second image.
The images were shared shortly after Zacharia’s five-day tenure ended on Friday. She had taken up the post on Monday but was asked to resign following a shaky first press briefing and revelations that she had not passed the bar exam, despite describing herself as an attorney.
One photograph showed Zacharia standing beside Trump as he sat at his desk in the Oval Office. A map was visible on the desk, although much of it had been blurred.
A second photograph, posted the following day, showed Zacharia with her husband and children alongside the president. In that image, the map appeared to have been edited out.
The apparent alteration prompted speculation about whether the map contained information relating to Trump’s plans for East Potomac Park in Washington DC. Observers said the shape of the landmass visible in the first photograph appeared similar to the park.
Questions over East Potomac Park plans
The park has become the focus of a legal dispute over plans to renovate its golf course. Trump announced in late June that he wanted to overhaul what he described as a “dilapidated, worn out, and very dangerous and outdated Golf Course”.
The proposal has been challenged by the DC Preservation League. The administration has maintained that there is no final design for the course, but opponents have viewed the map in the photograph as possible evidence that plans are further advanced.
Save East Po, an advocacy group opposing the renovation, shared the photograph and claimed that the blurred image showed East Potomac Park. In a further post featuring the second photograph, the group questioned why the map had been digitally removed if it was insignificant.
Alex Rosen, the group’s founder, said details visible on the blurred map resembled renderings of renovation plans that had previously circulated.
More than 400 trees have been felled at the park. Earlier this week, US District Judge Ana Reyes blocked the National Park Service from cutting down any more while she considers a lawsuit challenging the renovation.
Administration lawyers have argued that the tree removals were unrelated to Trump’s renovation initiative and instead formed part of a 2019 plan to restore the course to its original design. Reyes appeared sceptical of that explanation in a court memorandum.
“It is a coincidence, the government seems to suggest, that DOI [Department of the Interior] cut down hundreds of trees at the course weeks after the President asked DOI to cut down trees at the course, and not, say, any other time in the last seven years,” she wrote.
White House communications director Steven Cheung dismissed the concerns, describing the attention on the image as an obsession with an “innocuous photo” and accusing critics of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.
Zacharia also rejected the controversy, saying: “It is only fitting that the Daily Mail would turn a very sweet picture into something controversial.”
Trump later addressed the East Potomac Park project in a social media post, saying Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the Department of the Interior were excited about developing a new golf course at the site of the old East Potomac Golf Links.
He said Tom Fazio had provided an initial conceptual design and added that any changes would depend on site conditions and be made by parks and recreation experts.
