President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden, told U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain she wanted the woman who stole her diary to be incarcerated.
The story about Ashley Biden’s diary was trending on X (formerly Twitter) yesterday because of the recently released letter from Ashley Biden to Swain.
Ashley Biden’s diary was stolen by Aimee Harris, who pleaded guilty in 2022. Harris eventually sold the diary for $40,000 to Project Veritas along with another individual, Robert Kurlander, in 2020. Each received $20,000 for the stolen diary.
Harris was sentenced to one month in federal prison, three years of probation, and ordered to pay back the money she received.
Ashley Biden said she did not want to attend the sentencing at the time and, in the letter to the judge, said in part,
“I am deeply saddened that I even have to write this letter because my personal private journal was stolen and sold for profit. The point of the theft, I assume, was to be able to peddle grotesque lies by distorting my stream-of-consciousness thoughts. The reason I have decided to not attend tomorrow’s sentencing in person is because it would only increase my pain. Nevertheless, I write to ask Your Honor to sentence the defendant to time in prison.”
Citation
Project Veritas said it could not verify the diary’s authenticity when it received it. However, although its authenticity could not be verified, some of its contents were leaked.
One passage of the diary led to accusations that Biden had possibly molested Ashley Biden. The passage from the diary in question says in part (emphasis added is ours),
“Hypersexualized @ a young age what is this due to? was I molested? I think so – I can’t remember specifics but I do remember trauma – I remember not liking the Woolzacks house; I remember somewhat being sexualized with Caroline; I remember having sex with Friends @ a young age; showers with my dad (probably not appropriate), Being turned on when I wasn’t supposed to be.”
Citation
From the entry, there is no direct accusation about who allegedly molested Ashley Biden. She says she did not remember specifics but that she remembers being traumatized.
The only specific reference to her dad is that she had showered with him at a “young age.” No other details are given.
The diary was part of what Ashley Biden described as an effort to heal after being the victim of a crime in her early twenties and suffering from PTSD.
Ashley Biden also told the judge in her letter that the intent of sharing the diary was to hurt her dad’s campaign for President of the United States and that people were misrepresenting the contents of the diary. She said,
“Although this criminal act happened more than three years ago, because of the publicity it drew—exactly as Ms. Harris intended—I am constantly re-traumatized by it. I will forever have to deal with the fact that my personal journal can be viewed online. Repeatedly, I hear others grossly misinterpret my once-private writings and lob false accusations that defame my character and those of the people I love. Her actions were not only re-traumatizing to me, but constituted a horrific trauma in and of themselves. This ongoing harm is a direct result of Ms. Harris’s intentional actions.”
Citation
Another reason for the Ashley Biden diary trending on X also included a recent change to Snope’s determination of the authenticity of the diary.
Snopes had previously labeled the claim that the diary was authentic as “Unproven.” However, the cite now says “True” in regard to its authenticity.
