I think that might be what AP did- but if so, then why doesn their scanned image have the same layers?
Turn on the OCR AP and see if they can reproduce it- I guarantee they cant
The AP version is not he same as what the White House had on their site. It is completely different in proportion, and it does not have the same pixel arrangement in the problem areas of the White House version.
In short, there is no way the AP version could have been reproduced from the White House website version.
The questions remain, where did the AP get their copy, and why did the White House alter their version.