I think, at best, it shows that the observations are consistent with the model, or to take it back to the blurry low light photo... The photo wasn't obviously not Trump.

I remember reading the original paper at the time and thinking, if I had been a reviewer I'd have wanted clear acknowledgement of the confirmation bias danger in the methodology. Ideally some sort of quantification of risk. It just seemed like too large a flaw to just be glossed over.