Fabricated Disinformation Photographs

Photographs proposed for forgery during a nighttime briefing on the White House Colonnade. Bartlet, Leo, Casper, Fitzwallace, and Jordan debate their creation to falsely link the Patriot Brotherhood to the KSU bombing. These images serve as key props in a rushed plan to fabricate evidence amid the Johnson County standoff, heightening the moral stakes of the covert operation.

2 appearances

Purpose

Forge false visual evidence to support a disinformation narrative implicating the Patriot Brotherhood in the KSU bombing

Significance

Drive the ethical crisis in the briefing, forcing Bartlet to claim sole command while risking legal exposure through manipulated proof that blurs national security and rule-of-law boundaries

Appearances in the Narrative

When this object appears and how it's used

2 moments

S4E3 · College Kids

Bartlet Seizes Command — Domestic Standoff and Legal Reckoning

Fabricated disinformation photographs are suggested as visual props to falsely link actors or create narrative proof supporting the cover story; they are part of the intelligence deception toolkit discussed.

Before: Not yet created; proposed as part of a disinformation package.

After: Placed on the operational list of possible deception artifacts to be deployed abroad.

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S4E3 · College Kids

Manufactured Narrative and the Cost of Secrecy

Fabricated photographs are pitched as part of the disinformation toolkit to be planted in regional media and palaces to retroactively justify or obscure the covert killing; they serve to illustrate the lengths to which the administration might go to control narrative.

Before: Unmade; presented as an option by Fitzwallace for Langley to create.

After: Now on the table as a proposed product; no evidence in scene that they have been produced or distributed.

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