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At a minimum, I would encourage the author to fully investigate the facts surrounding how a newly-elected U.S. senator is issued a burgundy-colored passport identifying him/her as an official of the United States. We know that Obama had a blue, civilian passport and that that passport was replaced when he became a U.S. senator.

I’d like to know if he was simply issued a new passport for official travel or if he was required to provide documentary evidence to obtain the official passport. If he was required to provide documentation, what did he provide?
- The signed certificate from the Illinois Secretary of State indicating that he had been duly elected and was eligible to serve?
- A signed certificate from the U.S. senate upon being sworn in and seated as a senator?

We know the requirements for obtaining a civilian passport. We don’t believe the short-form Hawaiian COLB is sufficient to obtain a civilian passport. So we want to know if his civilian passport was from the U.S. or Indonesia.

What are the requirements for obtaining a U.S. official’s passport? Maybe I’ll just look that up. Now I’m really curious.

I found out that the U.S. passport agency issues official and diplomatic passports to government officials through the travel office of the corresponding government agency. So Obama’s (burgundy) official passort would have been issued through the U.S. Senate’s travel office. (I’ll call for more details on Monday.) The specific government agency’s travel office provides its employees with the passport application forms which document the requirements for obtaining an official’s passport.

I also found out that government officials still retain their blue civilian (tourist) passport. It isn’t “replaced.” Officials may travel with their government passport ONLY when on official state business. So if they’re in Europe for official business but want to pop over to Paris for the weekend, they must use their civilian passport to go to Paris.