Ryan, Grim. Project Veritas had no involvement with how those two individuals acquired the diary, lawyers for the group said in a letter dated Wednesday to a federal judge in New York. The Biden administration's effort to establish itself as a committed champion of press freedom is facing new doubts because of the Justice Department's aggressive legal tactics against a. It is all super anxiety producing but I just have to take it one day at a time and relax. Another passage says, My dad cried on the phone saying he has a debate in a week and now has to worry about you. And he cried., Under a column titled resentful and why, the writer wrote, dad, $, control and under a column titled hurt, after dad it says, hurting self, lying., The National File claimed that the diary started while the author was in a drug rehabilitation facility in Florida.The National File wrote that it obtained this document from a whistleblower who was concerned the media organization that employs him would not publish the materials in the final days before the presidential election., The National File wrote that it has a recording of Ashley Biden admitting the diary is hers, and employed a handwriting expert who verified the pages were all written by Ashley.. A diary! 21 Mar. The First Amendment is first for a reason: it guarantees all the other rights that follow, because its about accountability. Even as a child, I had a hard time reconciling the inherent unfairness of it all.. Both of those political stories had great political impact and were picked up by major news outlets all over the country, widely being regarded as legitimate stories. The Times reported that one of the locations searched by authorities was the residence of Spencer Meads, a longtime Project Veritas operative and confidante of Mr. OKeefe.. Ms. Fago, a donor to former President Donald J. Trump who visited the White House at least twice, is among a number of individuals being scrutinized by federal investigators, according to people familiar with the matter. Project Veritas, court testimony indicates, paid $40,000 for this alleged diary. Project Veritas will run from nothing, and we will hide from nothing. Project Veritas reached a Biden acquaintance who conferenced a person who identified herself as Biden. Like I said, Im fine with it, Mr. Bantner replied. Ashley Biden's Diary Was Shown at Trump Fund-Raiser. Your great awesome kids. The right-wing group's deceptive call to the president's daughter a month before Election Day is. "How Ashley Biden's Diary Made Its Way to Project Veritas." It remains unclear how Ms. Harris and Mr. Kurlander made contact with Project Veritas and what role others might have played in facilitating the transaction. The tipsters indicated that they were negotiating with a different media outlet for the payment of monies for the diary. It is all super anxiety producing but I just have to take it one day at a time and relax. Another passage says, My dad cried on the phone saying he has a debate in a week and now has to worry about you. And he cried., Under a column titled resentful and why, the writer wrote, dad, $, control and under a column titled hurt, after dad it says, hurting self, lying., The National File claimed that the diary started while the author was in a drug rehabilitation facility in Florida, and contains intensely personal information, including about drug addiction. The diary reportedly details her drug abuse, sex addiction and her being "hypersexualized." Project Veritas gave the diary to law enforcement to ensure it could be returned to its rightful owner. Project Veritas Accuses Federal Prosecutors of 'All-Out Assault on the First Amendment and Free Press' in Fight About Alleged Ashley Biden Diary. She decided to leave some of her belongings behind, including a duffel bag and another bag, people familiar with the events said. The government also said it was seeking any communications that the group prepared to send to Ms. Biden, Mr. Biden and others about her property. Weeks after Ms. Biden headed to the Northeast, the friend who had been hosting Ms. Biden in the house allowed an ex-girlfriend named Aimee Harris and her two children to move in. Weve investigated powerful people, and, in many ways, we are the tip of the spear, but we never break the law. Legal proceedings that occurred later make it clear that the National File document came from (or purportedly came from) Project Veritas (PV) a political organization that claims to practice journalism. But while the Department of Justice requested us to not disclose the existence of the subpoena, something very unusual happened. Reporting was contributed by Patricia Mazzei, William K. Rashbaum, Kitty Bennett, Matthew Cullen and Kirsten Noyes. Was I molested. I think so I cant remember specifics but I do remember trauma. The person the writer is accusing of molestation, if they even remembered it, is not mentioned in the pages. Ashley Biden Diary Published: Text & Content Scrutinized, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. The inquiry has also intensified the scrutiny of Project Veritas. A New York Times report published in March recounted a similar story: Ashley Biden stored some personal belongings at the house in Delray Beach when she moved out, with the owner's permission. A West Palm Beach woman discovered items Ashley Biden left in a Delray Beach home. According to the Times, he was also the first journalist to publish a yearbook picture showing Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and another person (the people in the photo were wearing a KKK outfit and blackface), and also first published text messages revealing an extramarital affair between Democratic Senate candidate in North Carolina, Cal Cunningham, and a woman. National File was referring to these representations made by Project Veritas' lawyers in the special master filing: Project Veritas worked to authenticate the diary and engaged a handwriting expert; it began producing a video news story. But by September, the diary had been acquired from Ms. Harris and a friend by Project Veritas, whose operations against liberal groups and traditional news organizations had helped make it a favorite of Mr. Trump. Its a decision that only I can make. In November 2021, for example, when Project Veritas confirmed media reports that it had been raided by the FBI, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert tweeted,"if the FBI raided someone's house over Ashley Biden's diary being stolen, that means Ashley Biden's diary and the accusations in it were real. The proceedings in the case have been sealed, but a producer for Fox News provided The New York Times with a copy of the letter written by the Project Veritas lawyers and its attachments, including a copy of the search warrant. . The Pundit Class is busy doing process pieces on high-level investigative journalism instead of reporting on Joe and Ashley's showers. Our efforts were the stuff of responsible, ethical, journalism and we are in no doubt that Project Veritas acted properly at each and every step. Ashley Biden's diary is under investigation by the FBI, which has launched a theft probe into Project Veritas. But these statements are not a publication of facts or a representation made by the government. How Ashley Biden's Diary Made Its Way to Project Veritas New details shed light on the federal investigation into the conservative group's acquisition last year of a journal kept by the. According to the sources, Biden left the diary and other belongings behind when she moved out of a house in Delray Beach, Florida, that one of the sources subsequently occupied. The agencie was protecting the Biden candidate. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. National File argued that the declaration of facts provided by Project Veritas in the special master filing proved that O'Keefe was lying about having doubts, and that he and his organization believed it to be real. Ashley Biden's diary. Ashley Bidens Diary: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. More than 120 pages published. According to the DailyMail.com, Ashley Biden, a drug addict, left her personal diary under a mattress in a Palm Beach, Florida halfway house where she stayed during one of her rehab stints.. Ashley Biden is the only daughter of President Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden. The diary disappeared after Ashley Biden left it and other belongings in a Delray Beach house where she had been staying and went temporarily to Delaware during the presidential campaign. The writer also wrote, I am grateful for my father and talks in great detail about her efforts at self betterment and sobriety and moving on from a painful personal relationship. According to The New York Times, Ashley Bidens friend then allowed his ex-girlfriend Aimee Harris to move into the home. What unites us is so much more powerful than what divides us. It was made public less than two weeks before the 2020 election by a right-wing website that posted several photographs of diary pages it claimed were written by Ms. Biden. In September 2020, Fago's daughter called the Project Veritas tip line, saying she knew someone in possession of Ashley Biden's diary. A diary authored by U.S. President Joe Biden's daughter, Ashley, describes inappropriate actions toward her taken by the president when she was a child. The family was close-knit, hardworking, always reminding the children that ordinary people can do the extraordinary. The New York Times has published a lengthy investigative piece exploring the federal investigation into the diary, including how it found its way into the hands of supporters of Mr. Trump at the height of the campaign.. But Project Veritas was still trying to use the diary as leverage. That communication occurred the same month the FBI opened an investigation: Ms. Biden's lawyers refused to acknowledge whether the diary belonged to Ms. Biden but told Mr. [Project Veritas lawyer Jered T.] Ede that Project Veritas should treat it as stolen property the lawyers suggested that "serious crimes" might have been committed and that any suggestion that the diary was abandoned was "ludicrous.". The New York Times reported that the FBI investigation is into how a diary stolen from President Bidens daughter, Ashley, came to be publicly disclosed a week and a half before the 2020 presidential election., The Times further reported, Project Veritas did not publish Ms. Bidens diary, but dozens of handwritten pages from it were posted on a right wing website., According to the New York Times, the investigation was first opened in October 2020 by Trumps Justice Department after a representative for Bidens family reported that several of Ms. Bidens personal items had been stolen in a burglary.. They dont want me to defend myself and immediately tried to silence me. A month prior to the November 2020 U.S. presidential election, right-wing blog The National File published what it claimed was "a copy of the complete diary of Ashley Blazer Biden, the 39-year-old . Adam Leo Bantner II, a Florida lawyer, delivered bags belonging to Ashley Biden to the police in Delray Beach the day after her father was declared the victor in the 2020 presidential election. It was allegedly left behind in an apartment Biden was staying at in Florida and ultimately sold by the person who found it to right-wing activist group Project Veritas. Simply put, nobody in a position to officially "confirm" the authenticity of that document has made such a declaration. Let me be clear. All of these relevant facts aside, though, no government official, prosecutor, or judge has explicitly "confirmed" that the diary published by National File is authentic. Should the Southern District of New York try to take away our First Amendment rights to uncover and publish newsworthy stories without government intimidation, be assured, Project Veritas will not back down. Nick Mele/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/us/politics/project-veritas-special-master.html. How I dont have them in my life anymore.. As the investigation came to light last month, Mr. OKeefe said in a statement that Project Veritas gave the diary to law enforcement to ensure it could be returned to its rightful owner.. The Delaware native, 39, was born in 1981 and grew up with her half brothers Beau and Hunter Biden, who both survived a 1972 car crash that killed their mother, Neilia, and younger sister, Naomi.. Exactly how Project Veritas came to acquire Ashley Biden's diary in the fall of 2020, during the home stretch of the presidential campaign, remains the subject of considerable debate and . Ashley Bidens diary is the subject of a criminal investigation by federal authorities. We know why. The diary also contains an allegation that the writer was concerned she was molested, although the page does not specify by whom. The man on the other end of the phone worked for Project Veritas, a conservative group that had become a favorite of President Donald J. Trump, according to interviews with people familiar with the sequence of events. The List once described Ashley Biden as a social worker, activist, and entrepreneur with a passion for creating permanent change, especially issues relating to poverty. Those being scrutinized include current and former operatives for the conservative group Project Veritas; a donor Mr. Trump appointed to a political position in the final days of his administration; a man who once pleaded guilty in a money laundering scheme; and a financially struggling mother of two, according to people familiar with federal grand jury subpoenas and a search warrant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. While you are under no obligation to comply with our request, we are requesting you not to make any disclosure in order to preserve the confidentiality of the investigation and because disclosure of the existence of this investigation might interfere with and impede the investigation'. The New York Times, 16 Dec. 2021. Project Veritas will run from nothing, and we will hide from nothing. We do not know how The New York Times was aware of the execution of a search warrant at our reporters home, or the subject matter of the search warrant, as a Grand Jury investigation is secret. We investigate facts and potential newsworthy information. The group which purchased the diary but ultimately did not publish it and denies any wrongdoing has assailed the investigation. executed search warrants last week at the homes of Mr. OKeefe and two former employees for the group. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. She and her son also met Mr. Trump on the tarmac of the West Palm Beach airport in 2019 and another picture shows the two together. The most recent claims of official authentication stem in part from a March 21, 2023,tweet by the National File the outlet that originally published the diary that highlighted the special master filing discussed above: To a passing observer unfamiliar with the criminal case against Project Veritas, this tweet could be incorrectly read as stating that the U.S District Court Special Master was the entity that "confirmed" that the diary was "legitimate." Like any reporter, we regularly deal with the receipt of source information and take steps to verify its authenticity, legality, and newsworthiness. According to the Times, Kurlander previously pleaded guilty to a federal money laundering crime in 1994, and harris is full cooperating with the investigation, according to her lawyer. "Florida Pair Pleads Guilty in Theft of Biden's Daughter's Diary." That an investigation was opened into, as it was first described in public filings, the theft of "personal belongings of an immediate family member of a then-former government official who was a candidate for national political office," and that two people were arrested for allegedly transporting, among other things, a stolen journal, further support its authenticity. Or at least, this journalist., He added: I had to think long and hard before making this statement. Then 38, Ashley Biden had worked for the group for a year and was promoted to executive director, according to Examiner, which added that the grant is designed to strengthen local law enforcement.. Biden told Elle that she was motivated by her parents professions. Now the New York Times is accusing a woman named Aimee Harris of being the person who gave it to Project Veritas, which is under investigation for its role in acquiring the diary. I got a real sense that some people had a lot, and some had nothing at all, Biden told Elle. Biden told Glamour that her early calling came in animal welfare issues. O'Keefe had claimed that he did not publish it because he could not verify its authenticity. Weve gone far beyond the point of partisan politics in this country. The First Amendment doesnt just matter to people on one side. The searches were targeting people who had worked with the group and its leader, James OKeefe, according to the Times. The judge set a schedule for the government and Project Veritas to provide her with more information in the coming days, and indicated that she is unlikely to rule for at least a week. The government said in the search warrant that among the crimes it was investigating were conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines, conspiracy to possess stolen goods and transporting stolen property across state lines. Howleys biography on National File describes him as a seasoned reporter responsible for revealing the Veterans Affairs scandal, exposing Ralph Northams racist yearbook photo, breaking the Cal Cunningham adultery scandal, and revealing the financial links between the Pelosi family and Ukraine. What unites us is so much more powerful than what divides us. Who is Ashley Biden? Ashley Biden has a history of drug-related controversies, including a past arrest from when she was 17. Sometimes, as was the case here, after we investigate, we decide to not publish a news story. The page also refers to overhearing parents having sex and claims, my mother not emotionally available. A source inside Project Veritas leaked the diary of Ashley Biden to a reporter at a conservative news outlet, according to Noel Fritsch, publisher of that outlet, National File, which first. Indeed, that is how several right-wing influencer accounts read and disseminated the news. Getty ---. The Justice Department searched two locations associated with the conservative group Project Veritas as part of an investigation into how a diary stolen from President Biden's daughter, Ashley, came to be publicly disclosed a week and a half before the 2020 presidential election, according to people briefed on the matter. Among those whose conduct is being scrutinized in the investigation is a woman with ties to Mr. Trump, Elizabeth Fago, a Florida businesswoman and Trump donor who was nominated by Mr. Trump in December 2020 to the National Cancer Advisory Board. We dont mislead or conceal. It characterized Project Veritas' assertions as "either false or misleading and . Reflection of the parents.. Quoting from this section of the document as evidence for the veracity of Project Veritas claims would be like taking a court-published transcript of O.J. and Justice Department declined to comment. Ashely Biden's diary revealed that her father, the current President of the United States, might have played a role in her being sexualized at a young age, and the big news is that it might have been criminal for someone else to possess the sordid autobiographical details. However, National File, an outlet unrelated to Project Veritas, published alleged excerpts of 39-year-old Ashley Biden's diary that included details of her previously disclosed problems with drugs. The Post did not buy the videotape but published a story about it yesterday. Patrick Howley (@HowleyReporter) November 7, 2021. Should the Southern District of New York try to take away our First Amendment rights to uncover and publish newsworthy stories without government intimidation, be assured, Project Veritas will not back down. If the government may, pursuant to a search warrant, fully examine a reporters electronic devices which include information and communications with government critics, watchdogs and whistle-blowers then the truth-seeking function of the press will wither.. Ms. Biden, who has kept a low profile throughout her fathers vice presidency and presidency, had left a job the year before working for a criminal justice group in Delaware. The tipsters indicated that the diary had been abandoned in a room in which Ms. Biden stayed at the time, and in which the tipsters stayed in temporarily after Ms. Biden departed the room. Now, this is not the first time we have been attacked and it will not be the last. A month prior to the November 2020 U.S. presidential election, right-wing blog The National Filepublished what it claimed was "a copy of the complete diary of Ashley Blazer Biden, the 39-year-old daughter of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, dating from during the 2020 presidential campaign.". That is why Im calling on all Americans, and especially all journalists, to stand with us for the right to free speech, the free press, and to send a message that the politics of fear will not prevail in the United States of America. [] In early November 2020, Project Veritas arranged for the delivery of the diary and other belongings to the Delray Beach, FL police department. It was around that same time that the two Florida defendants, Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander, would enter the picture, as would a diary belonging to Ashley Biden, Hunter's half-sister. Spokesmen for the F.B.I. Portions of the diary. Unverified pages of the alleged diary first emerged on a website called National File. The New York Times, 20 Mar. How about they do a "follow up" on that? Ashley Biden's diary - which was published shortly before the 2020 election by a conservative news site that highlighted a claim against her father - is the subject of a criminal probe. Project Veritas has sought to portray itself as a news media organization that made a journalistic decision not to publish the diary, suggesting it is being targeted by the Biden Justice Department and that federal investigators disclosed the existence of the searches to a reporter for The Times. Feds are ridiculous people, Patrick Howley (@HowleyReporter) November 6, 2021, He also tweeted, The Pundit Class is busy doing process pieces on high-level investigative journalism instead of reporting on Joe and Ashleys showers. In August 2022, the two individuals who found, transported, and sold the alleged diary to Project Veritas pleaded guilty to transporting stolen property across state lines. They are not, as has been implied, statements of the special master, the U.S. District Court, or government prosecutors. Two plead guilty to theft of diary purportedly belonging to Biden's daughter. However, they are representations made by "petitioners, through counsel" i.e., the lawyers for Project Veritas. According to Elle magazine, Biden started Livelihood, an ethically produced, American-made clothing company. The fashion line contained supersoft organic cotton hoodies.. She moved to Philadelphia, planning to return to the Florida home and leaving her belongings behind as a result, The Times reported. The Times, which is being sued by Project Veritas in another case, reported that the Justice Department searched two locations associated with the group. But while the Department of Justice requested us to not disclose the existence of the subpoena, something very unusual happened. The writer also wrote, I am grateful for my father and talks in great detail about her efforts at self betterment and sobriety and moving on from a painful personal relationship.