[1] An estimated 300,000 to 600,000[2][3] people attended the public ceremony held on Friday, January 20, 2017, at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

[19] The 2017 Presidential Inaugural Committee[21] organized several other inauguration-related events at the direction of the president‑elect and vice president-elect of the United States, such as the concerts, parade, balls, and prayer service.

The chairman of the committee was Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a real estate investor and longtime Trump friend and ally, and the founder of Colony Capital.

[22] Committee members included casino magnates Sheldon Adelson and Miriam Adelson, Steve Wynn, and Phil Ruffin, oil and gas entrepreneur Harold Hamm, businesswoman and film producer Diane Hendricks, coal businessman and philanthropist Joe Craft, Gail Icahn (wife of Carl Icahn), Dallasites Ray Washburne, Gentry Beach, Roy Bailey, and Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets.

[25] Observers agree that the actual inauguration expenses would have been a fraction of that amount, and the advocacy group Public Citizen has been seeking to know what happened to the remaining funds.

[30] Twenty-four million dollars went to an independent organization created by television producer Mark Burnett, "Inaugural Productions", for the staging of several events.

[33] The dinner was black tie and invitation-only, and was described by The Wall Street Journal as the most high-profile event preceding the inauguration,[34] with both Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence addressing the gathering.

[35] According to The Boston Globe and the Associated Press, the menu included mustard black cod and filet mignon as entrees, and baked Alaska for dessert.

[39] The Arlington National Cemetery is the burial place of more than 400,000 people, mostly members of the armed forces, Medal of Honor recipients, and high ranking political officials.

[42] Actor Jon Voight also spoke at the event, stating, "We have been witness to a barrage of propaganda that left us all breathless with anticipation, not knowing if God could reverse all the negative lies against Mr. Trump, whose only desire was to make America great again.

The weather conditions for 12 noon at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, located 3.1 miles from the ceremony, were: 48 °F (9 °C), wind 5 mph, and cloudy.

"[75][83] Fact-checking organizations, such as FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and The Washington Post's Fact Checker claimed that Trump's portrayal of the United States in decline "did not always match reality.

"[84][85][86] The fact-checking organizations noted, among other things, that the U.S. violent crime rate was far below its 1991 peak; that the U.S. economy had gained jobs for 75 consecutive months and that unemployment was significantly below its historical average; and participation in U.S. welfare programs had declined.

[101] The first course consisted of Maine lobster and Gulf shrimp with saffron sauce and peanut crumble, accompanied by a J. Lohr 2013 Arroyo Vista Chardonnay.

For the 2017 inaugural luncheon, the featured painting was George Caleb Bingham's The Verdict of the People, which depicts a Missouri town and its citizens both celebrating and mourning the election victory of what historians say was a likely proslavery candidate.

[123] Pierre has also designed dresses for first ladies Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, and he has been styling for Melania Trump for several years.

[124] At the beginning of the ball, Trump and his wife, Melania, addressed the crowd of gathered service members, and then spoke via satellite with active duty soldiers in Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.

[130] The service began with call to prayer by the Reverend Rosemarie Duncan, Mikhail Manevich, a Jewish cantor, and Mohamed Magid, a Muslim imam.

[134] Overhead imagery[135] and statistics on public transportation ridership from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which operates Metrorail, are therefore used to estimate crowd sizes.

[138] Crowd counting experts cited by The New York Times estimated that about 160,000 people were in the National Mall areas in the hour leading up to Trump's speech.

[146][150][151] In response, Donald Trump's counselor and spokesperson, Kellyanne Conway, in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, stated that Spicer merely presented "alternative facts".

[161] The National Park Service's official Twitter account had re-tweeted two Tweets on "omissions on policy areas" on the White House website and Trump's and Obama's crowd sizes.

[162][163] Reynolds and the Park Service complied with the directive; the additional photos, however, "did not prove Trump's contention that the crowd size was upward of 1 million.

"[162] In September 2018, documents released from a Freedom of Information Act request showed that Reynolds and the National Park Service cropped photos of the inauguration, at the direction of the President, in an attempt to make the crowd size seem larger.

[178] Sixty-seven Democratic U.S. representatives declined to attend Trump's inauguration, citing "what they described as his alarming and divisive policies, foreign interference in his election and his criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, a congressman from Georgia".

[192] Robert Mueller's team has questioned Barrack and other witnesses, reportedly asking about "donors with connections to Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

[195] In exchange for a recommendation of a lenient sentence, Patten pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller.

[197] The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported in December 2018 that federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn are investigating whether Middle Eastern foreigners sought to buy influence over American policies by using straw donors to illegally funnel donations to Trump's inaugural committee and a pro-Trump Super PAC.

[200] The subpoena reportedly covered allegations of conspiracy to defraud the United States government, money laundering, false statements, mail and wire fraud, disclosure violations and prohibitions against contributions by foreign nations.

[203] The office of Attorney General for the District of Columbia Karl Racine served a subpoena to the inaugural committee in February 2019 as part of an investigation.