On Monday, President Joe Biden signed his big infrastructure bill into law. The White House has made the most of passing the $1.2 trillion bill that it’s touting as transformative.
Its victory lap included Vice President Kamala Harris tweeting a video of the bill signing. The otherwise ceremonial event has unexpectedly sparked a wave of conspiracy theories.
Rumors are flying online about why the presidential seal is blurred in the video.
There is a reasonable explanation for photoshopping the seal. It’s the law.
Federal law dictates that the seal can’t be used for any type of advertisement, such as campaigning. Thus, the seal had to be blurred because Harris tweeted the video from her personal Twitter account, rather than the official vice president account.
As the liberal political action committee Meidas Touch pointed out, though he wasn’t necessarily known for complying with the finer points of campaign law, former President Donald Trump blurred the seal.
This perfectly logical, if obscure, reason hasn’t stopped conspiracists from flooding Twitter with theories.
“Something is not right,” tweeted one. “Doesn’t even look like Biden.”
Another wondered, “What are they trying to hide.”
Numerous people even suggested that the infrastructure bill signing video included computer-generated imagery.
“Why did her hand go through his head,” tweeted one. (A large group of people appear to have mistaken a shadow of Harris’ hand passing over Biden’s face as an actual hand.)
Others mocked conspiracy theories about the blurring of the seal.
“No one has ever seen the Seal of the President of the United States before,” tweeted @dates71. “It must remain a secret, much like the corners of the Mona Lisa painting.”
Conspiracies and jokes about the blurred presidential seal continued circulating on Wednesday.
