“Does the Applewhite image have the material that was hidden by the clipping mask?”
YES, and NBC claims to have explained why in great detail in posts on his blog.
http://nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/xerox-7655-clipping-path-and-objects/
“The following three images show the ‘raw’ Xerox file, which has no clipping path at the top level and the Preview saved version which shows that Preview added a clipping path.”
The Applewhite image was not processed through Preview so it doesn’t have the clipping mask. NBC claims to have demonstrated that it is Preview that added the clipping mask.
The Applewhite image has the two dots at the right edge?
Also, how did the White House clean up the file a couple hours after initially posting it, when they realized that it wasn’t flattened? Is the 2011 tax return similarly unflattened? The 2009 tax return was unflattened, but that one had the SSN redacted so it had to be manipulated, yielding the layers that needed to be flattened. The 2011 one must have had the SSN redacted as well, meaning that it had to have layers as well. Would it have to be previewed and saved on a different computer to flatten the file?