The White House issued a video showing the Presidents passport in response to a question . It can be seen at the link at the top of this page ( starts about 1:20 in ). Watch the video then read my analysis. What will be shown in the analysis is that they used 2 separate passports in the video ( but trying to pass it off as one ).
They pulled a little bait and switch with the passport. I have provided screenshots of the video.The first view of the passport is of a closeup of the passport page with his picture on it. They then cut to a different shot of them opening a passport to show the stamps on it.They never showed the cover of the passport from which they showed his picture ( which is significant since it would show if it was a diplomatic one or not ). Now about the screenshots.
This is the page with his picture. They blur out the date of issue and the date of expiration. Why do that ? It is obvious his presidential passport was issued shortly after his taking office. There is no need to redact that info. Even if for some reason there was, can there be a reason why the year is redacted ? I think it is pretty well known that he became president in 2009.
ANALYSIS OF THE OBAMA PASSPORT
Date of Issue
Throughout the video of the closeup of the photopage of the passport,both the Date of Issue and the Date of Expiration are blurred out. However, in a few frames, the blurring drops a bit and we are able to see one line of the Date of Issue. It is from this line that I can determine the date of issue to being the month of March or May ( Let us take the earlier of the two, March, because any of the subsequent analysis that would apply to March would certainly apply for May ) and the day of 10, 12,13,18, or 19. The year is not revealed.
Below, you can see the video frame where they revealed a line of the Date of Issue:
Now, how did I determine the day and month ? I found an exemplar of a passport. It can be seen below :
Notice under Date of birth, we have 24 Mar:. I will use that as the comparison field. Although the header is Date of birth, the only section we are interested in is the Date of. The spacing for that is exactly the same for the Date of Issue.
The date format is DD-MMM-YYYY, where the month is the first 3 letters of the month. All we are concerned about is the first letter. That leaves us with the letters J,F,M,A,S,O,N,D.
Now let us look at a close up of the comparison field :
The only letter that makes those two points ( under the red dots ) and line up under the o and the f , is the letter M. Therefore, the month of issue can only be March or May. Similarly with the date, the first number can only be 0, 1, 2, or 3. Since 0, 2, and 3 all have rounded tops and the number in the image doesn’t, it is obvious it is a 1. The second number has a rounded top. That corresponds to a 0, 2, 3, 8, or 9 ( though the angle of the curve seems a little big for a 9 ) Therefore, the Date of Issue is most probably March 10, 12, 13, or 18.
VISA
When they show the view of the stamp page, you get a glimpse of the top of a visa that was issued to him. It is a SCHENGEN visa. ( It has the words Etats Schengen across the top ) That is a visa that can be used in all the countries that are Schengen members. All of the European countries that he visited are members ( with the exception of the United Kingdom ).Thus, he only needed one visa for all of those countries.. Below is an actual Schengen visa. Notice right under the Etats Schengen is the Date Valid From in the format DD-MM-YY. (dashes included ):
Here is the screenshot of the Obama visa:
Now some enhanced close-ups of the Date Valid From:
The day looks like the 4th, or the 24th ( , the base of the number is a little wide to be a 1 ), followed by a dash. The important field to look at though is the month. The first number of the field is definitely a 0. The second digit is definitely a 1. This is proven as follows. The only month numbers we need to be concerned with are 1, 2,and 3, since he has an entry stamp for the United Kingdom in March . Now the pixel length of the base of the number 3 is the same as that of 0. If the second number in the month field were 3 ( indicating that it was issued in the same month the passport was issued ), its base length will be equal to that of 0.
Here is an enlargement of the numbers with the base length of each number underlined in red:
Obviously, the base length of the second number is much shorter than the 0, Therefore, the number cannot be 3 or even 2 ( since the base length of 2 is the same size as 3 ). The base length confirms what is obvious on a visual inspection- that number is a 1. Since the Date Valid From cannot be earlier than the Date of Issue, the date of issue was sometime in January.
Questions
How can a visa that was issued in January be affixed to a passport that wasn’t even issued until the following March ?
The answer is it can’t. It is impossible. In order to get a visa, you have to surrender the passport to the embassy and they affix the visa to your passport and enter your passport number on the visa. Heads of State are probably handled differently.Most likely someone from the State Department brings the passport over ( and it is not just his, but his families and staff ) and the visa is issued and affixed in their presence – WITH THAT DAY OF ISSUE WRITTEN ON THE VISA. So the diplomatic passport with the attached visa ( with visa issue date of January ) had to have been issued in January, not March.
How was the visa applied for and issued in January ?
They needed a passport number in order to issue the visa (passport number on the visa has to match the passport to which it is attached) and that wasn’t available until March, Line 14 of the Schengen visa application requests the passport number. The link to the form can be seen at the top of this page.
Also, on the full Schengen visa you see right next to the Date of Issue ( under the place of issue ) a space for the passport number. Obviously, the passport number on the visa has to match the passport number of the passport to which it is attached.
When a new passport is issued ( and his secretary filed for a new passport, not a renewal ), a new passport number is assigned. Therefore, they couldn’t just use the passport number from his Senate passport.See (Step 1 Part A ) at Passport Info link at top of this page.
Why was the passport issued in March ?
His personal secretary said one of the first jobs she had was to fill out his passport application. That would have been one of the top priorities since he had a scheduled trip to Canada on Feb 19 (This was his first trip as Head of State. He would have needed his “Presidential” passport for diplomatic reasons. He certainly could not have traveled in February on a passport that wasn’t issued until March. He had to have traveled on one that was issued in January or early February ). It took 7 to 8 weeks to get it issued. Maybe they waited a few weeks before filling out the form. That would bring it down to 4 to 6 weeks. That is the normal time anybody waits. According to the State Department, you can get one issued in under 2 weeks if an appointment is made at the local regional office (See Processing link at top of page ). There are even private companies that can get one issued in less than 10 days ( 1 day in an emergency ) (see Passport Services link at top of this page ). For diplomatic passports, the State Department even has a separate office to handle those requests. Since there is less volume to process, requests through this office are handled quicker. (see State Department link at top of this page) I am sure a request for a passport for thePresident would go to the top of the list and be handled in a matter of days.So why was this one issued in the middle March ? Especially since his trip to Europe was at the end of March. The Schengen visa was issued on or before January 24. The earliest they could have applied wasJanuary 21. So a foreign embassy took at the most 3 days to approve the visa, but our ownState Department takes close to 2 months to issue a passport for the President ? I find that hard to believe.
Conclusion
Something does not seem right about the whole scenario.
1 ) A presidential passport that takes 2 months to be issued
2 ) A visa that was approved for a passport 2 months prior to that passport being issued.
3 ) The visa is affixed to a diplomatic passport.That visa must have the same number of that passport to which it is affixed written on the visa ( as shown in the visa photo above ). If the passport issued in March was the passport the visa was attached to, it would be impossible.The visa was issued in January. The passport number for the March issued passport wasn’t available until 2 months later.
The only logical conclusion to this is that the passport to which the Schengen visa is attached is a valid diplomatic passport issued to the President before the 24th of January ( which is what you would expect – the passport being applied for and received within a few days of taking office.) That is the only way you could have that valid visa. It had to have been attached to a passport that was issued before the visa was issued. The passport used for the closeup is a different passportissued in March ( year unknown ). Therefore, 2 passports were used in the video – thus explaining the separate video shots ( needed if using 2 passports ) instead of one long continuous shot. The question that remains is WHY ? What is on the second passport that he doesn’t want to be seen that necessitated using a different passport for the close up ?
Even if unavailability of a passport number needed for the visa could be explained away, whatCAN’T be explained away is the date of issue of the passport used in the closeup.THERE IS NO WAY ON THIS EARTH THAT IT WOULD TAKE CLOSE TO 2 MONTHS TO GET A PASSPORT ISSUED FOR THE PRESIDENT. ESPECIALLY SINCE THERE IS A SEPARATE OFFICE IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT SET ASIDE FOR DIPLOMATIC PASSPORTS AND A PRIVATE CITIZEN CAN GET AN EXPEDITED ONE ISSUED IN LESS THAN 10 DAYS. Thus the blurring of the date of issue. They would not be able to explain that away.
So we have the following situation :
1) A valid new diplomatic passport ( the one shown with the Schengen visa and the entry stamps ) issued sometime in January 2009 used to show the port of entry stamps. This is consistent with a passport being applied for the President in January and being issued within a few days. Just as one would expect.
2) A passport that was issued in March or May ( year unknown ) used to show the photo and info page. This is inconsistent with a passport being applied for the President in January. It would not take close to 2 months to have one issued to the President.
3) The White House editing the video to make it seem like they are showing one passport , when in fact they are showing two separate ones .
4) As was shown, there is no way that the passport that shows his photo and info (passport 1 ) can be the same passport as the one with the entry stamps (passport 2). Passport 1 was issued in March or May.Passport 2 had to have been issued in January in order to have the visa that was issued in January attached to it.
Note: A holder of a diplomatic passport can retain his personal passport. Actually he must . see State Department link above -under Applying For And Traveling With Your No-Fee Passport
One Other Comment:
They do some very selective editing in the video. When he opens the diplomatic passport and flips to the stamp entry page, it seems to speed up a bit. Actually, it only looks that way. The reason is that they cut out about 1 to 2 seconds of video between the flipping and the arrival on that page. Look at the following screen captures. They are taken at approximately 1/30th of a second apart :
Frame 1
Frame 2
Frame 3
Notice that it takes a huge leap from Frame 2 to Frame 3. Too much of a leap to be done in1/30th of a second. There were obviously frames cut out between Frame 2 and Frame 3. Why do that ? But that is not the interesting thing about the missing 1 to 2 seconds. If you recall when you viewed the video, they made it seem like someone was there with a camera and they taped him as he opened the passport and flipped through it. All the while , he was talking through it. Just someone standing with a camera as he went through “showing” the passport. However, it was much more complicated than that. We know from the screen captures, that frames were deleted. However, at the point where those frames were deleted, the audio is smooth and continuous. There is only one way that could be. They overlaid the audio track on the video track AFTER it was edited ( you never see him talking during the closeups of the passport ). Why go through all that subterfuge in displaying the passport unless there is something on his current diplomatic passport that they don’t want revealed ?
ONCE AGAIN, THE WHITE HOUSE HAS COMMITTED A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC
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