Ashley Biden’s diary was shown and bought during a Trump fundraiser before it was bought by Project Veritas for $40,000 ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
On Sunday, the New York Times published new details about Project Veritas’ alleged attempts to obtain and authenticate the first daughter’s diary as the conservative group is still under federal investigation into the matter.
The Times reported that Biden received a call from a man working for Project Veritas saying he found the diary and thought it belonged to her.
He allegedly did not tell Biden that he was affiliated with a conservative group.
But according to the Times, the call was meant to trick Biden into confirming her diary was real.
This could complicate the Project Veritas lawsuit, as the group wanted to be classified as a publisher and thus protect journalists under the First Amendment.
But using deceit, as the caller did when using a fake name, is not typical journalistic behavior.
In a statement to , Project Veritas spokesman R. S. Maxwell said, “As usual, the New York Times misses the real story by years, much like it does with a single laptop.”
“Similarly, the Times has long accused Project Veritas of engaging in a “coordinated disinformation campaign,” and now admits that Veritas reporting confirms that Ashley Biden’s diary was real, and all Veritas activity related to the diary was used “to authenticate diary” – Maxwell. said.
Ashley Biden’s diary (right) was shown and bought during a Trump fundraiser before it was bought by Project Veritas for $40,000 ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
Project Veritas head James O’Keeffe was dragged from his apartment in nothing but his underwear and handcuffs during a November morning raid.
In court documents, prosecutors suggested that Project Veritas was involved in stealing some of Biden’s other belongings, which Times interviews show the group got to confirm that the diary belonged to Biden.
After going to rehab in Florida in 2019, Biden moved into a two-bedroom house rented by a friend in Delray Beach, Florida and stayed there while her father ran in the spring 2020 Democratic primary.
But in June, in the final months of the campaign, Ashley Biden moved back to the Philadelphia area, leaving some of her belongings at home, and plans to return in the fall before her lease expires in November.
According to a previous Times report, her roommate allowed an ex-girlfriend named Aimee Harris and her two children to move in.
Harris was reportedly going through a bitter custody battle and financial difficulties.
Her “social media posts and conversations with friends suggested she was a fan of Mr. Trump,” the Times said in a December report.
Ashley Biden (right) at age six with her father, now President Joe Biden, when the then senator ran for president for the first time in August 1987.
Ashley Biden (right) sits with her parents Jill Biden (left) and Joe Biden (center) at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, when Biden was then running mate of Senator Barack Obama.
Ashley Biden (left) walks with her father, President Joe Biden (right) as they leave a church in November in Wilmington, Delaware.
Ashley Biden is photographed at a gala dinner at the White House in October 2016.
Harris soon learned that Ashley Biden previously lived at the address and left some of her belongings at home, according to an earlier Times report.
What happened next is the subject of an investigation.
Project Veritas told a federal judge that in September 2020, someone referred to as “the whistleblower” called and left a voicemail telling the conservative group that “a new resident moved into the place where Ashley Biden previously stayed and found the diary of Mrs. Ms. Biden and other personal items.
“The diary is pretty crazy,” the post read. “I think it’s worth a look,” the caller added.
Project Veritas confirmed that the band paid money for the diary.
They did this through an unnamed proxy from two people identified by their initials AH and RK.
The group stated that they acquired the diary legally.
The Times identified these men as Harris and Robert Kurlander.
Kurlander was a longtime friend and former housemate of Harris who had previously pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy in a drug money laundering scheme and was sentenced to 40 months in prison.
Robert Kurlander tweeted Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in October 2020, just weeks before Election Day, telling them “Ashley and Hunter are a disaster.”
Kurlander tweeted Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in October 2020, just weeks before Election Day, asking “Where are the two Biden kids?” Why aren’t they campaigning like your four kids? Your wonderful wonderful children. Children can tell a lot about a family!!!!!
“Ashley and Hunter are a disaster,” he continued. “Reflection of parents. Joe!!!
Since then, he has continued to share pro-Trump tweets.
The New Times report says Kurlander contacted Elizabeth Fago, a Florida businesswoman who was appointed by Trump in December 2020 to serve on the National Cancer Advisory Board.
On September 3, 2020, Fago’s daughter called Project Veritas support, according to The Times.
According to the Times, three days later, Harris and Kurlander, who brought the diary with them, attended a fundraiser at Fago’s home in Jupiter, Florida.
Donald Trump Jr. also attended the fundraiser.
The Times said it was unclear if Trump Jr saw the diary at the party.
Mark Paoletta, a lawyer who worked for Vice President Mike Pence who lobbied for Project Veritas and its head James O’Keefe, told Republican lawmakers this fall that Trump Jr. learned about the diary at a fundraiser but showed no interest in it and said that whoever owns it should report it to the FBI.
Paoletta later called back a group of Republicans in Congress to say he wasn’t sure his characterization of Trump Jr.’s reaction was accurate, according to The Times.
After fundraising, Project Veritas attempted to obtain the diary by sending Harris and Kurlander to New York to meet with several of the group’s operatives at a hotel on Manhattan’s West Side.
No deal was made during this trip, so Harris and Kurlander returned to Florida.
One of O’Keeffe’s top aides, Spencer Meads, was sent to Florida to further investigate the diary.
In court documents, Project Veritas said its employees received additional items belonging to Ashley Biden, which “sources” said were “abandoned.”
“Sources arranged to meet with a Project Veritas journalist in Florida shortly thereafter to hand over additional abandoned items to the journalist,” Project Veritas lawyers wrote.
In the documents, prosecutors questioned the integrity of Project Veritas’ actions.
“To put it simply, even representatives of the media “cannot break into and enter an office or residence to collect news with impunity,” the prosecutor’s office wrote.
Prosecutors disputed the group’s “repeated claim that they were ‘not involved’ in how the victim’s property was ‘acquired’.”
O’Keeffe was dragged from his apartment in nothing but his underwear and handcuffs during a November morning raid, two days after the FBI ransacked the homes of other Project Veritas employees.
O’Keefe, according to court documents, told his team in an October 12, 2020 email that he had decided not to release the story about the diary.
“We have no doubt that the document is real,” he said, but added that it “will be characterized as a cheap shot.”
Four days later, Project Veritas wrote to then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his campaign that they had received Ashley Biden’s “neglected” diary and wanted to question the current president on camera.
Around the same time, Project Veritas completed a deal to buy the diary from Harris and Kurlander for $40,000, transferring the money to them.
“If we do not hear from you by Tuesday, October 20, 2020, we will have no choice but to act unilaterally and reserve the right to disclose that you have refused our offer to answer questions. set by your daughter” – Project Veritas. General Counsel Jared T. Ede wrote.
In response, Biden’s lawyers called the request “extortion to obtain an interview.”
They refused to acknowledge that the diary belonged to Ashley Biden, but told Eda that it should be treated as stolen property and called it “ridiculous” that the diary was abandoned.
Lawyers said “serious crimes” could have been committed.
According to The Times, Biden’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan told Ede: “This is insane; we have to ship to SDNY.
Biden’s lawyers alerted the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is now investigating.
During the correspondence on October 24, the conservative website National File published excerpts from the diary, and later in full.
The posts didn’t get much attention.
The site claimed to have received the diary from someone in another organization who refused to release it.
According to The Times, O’Keeffe was furious, and some people at Project Veritas believed someone had leaked information from their organization.
In a lawsuit last year, O’Keeffe’s attorney said Project Veritas arranged for Ashley Biden’s property to be delivered to a Florida police station in early November 2020, near the Delray Beach property.
Lawyer Adam Leo Bantner (pictured) was caught on camera handing over bags of belongings belonging to Ashley Biden to the Delray Beach Police Department in November 2020.
“Project Veritas has turned the diary over to law enforcement to ensure it can be returned to its rightful owner,” O’Keeffe said in a November statement.
A Florida lawyer named Adam Leo Bantner handed over the bags the day after Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election.
Citing a police report and body camera footage, The Times reported that Bantner told officers that his client had told him the property was “possibly stolen” and that he “obtained it from an unknown person at a hotel.”
Bantner describes the bags as “crap” to the officer, who then replies that he was going to throw the bags in the trash because there was no “information” or “evidence”.
“As I said, everything suits me,” Bantner replied.
The police report says officers determined the items in the bags belonged to Ashley Biden, alerting both the Secret Service and the FBI, who took them.