A diary authored by U.S. President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden, describes actions taken towards her by her father when she was a baby as “most likely not applicable.”
Notice: On April 29, 2024, Snopes modified the score of this truth verify from “Unproven” to “True” primarily based on testimony offered by Ashley Biden. In an April 8 letter to a New York decide requesting jail time for one of many two folks convicted of stealing her diary, Biden wrote “I’ll ceaselessly should take care of the truth that my private journal will be considered on-line.”
Earlier variations of this truth verify famous “sturdy proof” that the diary existed, however argued that no supply had authenticated the contents of the pages printed on-line, writing that “the authenticity of pictures presupposed to be from a diary is a separate query from the factual existence of a diary.”
Ashley Biden’s letter to the court docket, in Snopes view, gives that affirmation.
Since 2023, varied right-leaning accounts on X (previously Twitter) have shared an old video containing audio of a telephone name between Ashley Biden, the daughter of U.S. President Joe Biden, and operatives of Mission Veritas — a political group that claims to apply journalism.
As Snopes mentioned in detail in March 2023, that telephone name is a part of a collection of proof that implies Mission Veritas got here into possession of a diary that authentically belonged to Ashley Biden. Mission Veritas, nonetheless, withheld publication of the doc.
As an alternative, a month earlier than the November 2020 U.S. presidential election, a right-wing weblog named The Nationwide File printed what it claimed was “a duplicate of the whole diary of Ashley Blazer Biden, the 39-year-old daughter of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, relationship from through the 2020 presidential marketing campaign.”
An usually cited page from that “leaked diary,” which chronicled its creator’s habit restoration in intimate element, makes reference to sexual trauma and poses questions searching for a proof for being “hyper-sexualized @ a younger age.” Together with mentions of not liking to go to a sure household’s home, “being sexualized” with a feminine good friend, and “having intercourse with pals @ a younger age,” the creator famous taking “showers with my dad (most likely not applicable).”
Authorized proceedings that occurred later make it clear that the Nationwide File doc got here from Mission Veritas. The Intercept reported in September 2022 {that a} Mission Veritas worker offered the alleged diary to the Nationwide File in October 2020, when Mission Veritas had reservations about publishing it.
Mission Veritas, court docket testimony signifies, paid $40,000 for this alleged diary. As reported by The Related Press in August 2022, the doc had come into the possession of two folks after one moved into an condominium beforehand occupied by Ashley Biden:
Ashley Biden was shifting out of a good friend’s Delray Seaside house in spring 2020 when she saved the diary, tax data, a digital system with household pictures, a cellphone and different gadgets there, prosecutors stated in a court docket submitting.
They stated [Aimee] Harris then moved into the identical room, discovered the gadgets and obtained in contact with [Robert] Kurlander, who enthused in a textual content message that he would assist her make a “ton of cash” from promoting it, including an expletive earlier than “ton.”
Harris and Kurlander pleaded guilty in August 2022 to conspiracy to move stolen property throughout state strains of their sale of the doc to Mission Veritas. According to Mission Veritas founder James O’Keefe in August 2022, his group couldn’t affirm the diary it acquired belonged to Ashley Biden.
In April 2024, the New York Occasions published a letter that Ashley Biden wrote to the Decide in Harris’ case as a part of her sentencing course of during which Biden referenced the hurt brought on by the publication of pictures of her journal on-line, confirming that the phrases printed on-line had been hers whereas noting that they’ve been misinterpreted:
After being the sufferer of against the law in my early twenties, I developed PTSD. The journal that was stolen was a part of my efforts to heal.
I’m a personal citizen, focused solely as a result of my father occurred to be operating to be President. In different phrases, the intensive work I’ve executed to maneuver previous my trauma was undone by Ms. Harris’s actions. …
Though this prison act occurred greater than three years in the past, due to the publicity it drew—precisely as Ms. Harris supposed—I’m continually re-traumatized by it. I’ll ceaselessly should take care of the truth that my private journal will be considered on-line.
Repeatedly, I hear others grossly misread my once-private writings and lob false accusations that defame my character and people of the folks I like.
Harris was sentenced to one month in jail. Kurlander has but to be sentenced.
As a result of printed court docket paperwork together with the written testimony of Ashley Biden herself reveal the fact of the diary, the declare that it has been “confirmed” is True.
