Crime

Florida Pair Plead Guilty in Theft of Biden’s Daughter’s Diary

By Adam Goldman and Michael S. Schmidt, 2022-08-25
The
The New York Times
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Ashley Biden, President Joe Biden's daughter, at Fort McNair in Washington, April 17, 2022. (Oliver Contreras/The New York Times)

Two Florida residents pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday to stealing a diary and other belongings of President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden, and selling them to conservative group Project Veritas in the final weeks of the 2020 election.

Aimee Harris, 40, and Robert Kurlander, 58, admitted they took part in a conspiracy to transport stolen materials from Florida, where Ashley Biden had been living, to New York, where Project Veritas has its headquarters.

Prosecutors said Kurlander agreed as part of a plea deal to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation into how the diary was acquired by Project Veritas, whose deceptive operations against liberal groups and traditional news organizations made it a favorite of former President Donald Trump.

“Harris and Kurlander stole personal property from an immediate family member of a candidate for national political office,” Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

It is the first time criminal charges have been filed in the theft of Biden’s diary, which she kept while she recovered from addiction.

“I know what I did was wrong and awful, and I apologize,” Kurlander said in court.

“I sincerely apologize for any actions and know what I did was illegal,” Harris said.

Kurlander and Harris, who surrendered to authorities early Thursday, were released from custody after the hearing.

Whether the Justice Department ultimately charges anyone who worked for Project Veritas is unclear. The group did not publish the diary.

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James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Feb. 26, 2021. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)

But prosecutors said the two at one point disclosed to a Project Veritas operative that Biden had stored more items at the Florida house and that they returned to the house to steal them at the operative’s request. The two later met with the operative in Florida and gave the additional stolen property to that employee, who shipped it to New York, prosecutors said.

Since the investigation began nearly two years ago, federal investigators have moved aggressively, carrying out court-authorized searches at the homes of two former Project Veritas operatives and of the group’s founder, James O’Keefe.

Prosecutors have obtained a trove of emails that Project Veritas operatives exchanged around the time that it purchased the diary, and they have interviewed several former operatives, including some who left the organization after growing disillusioned with O’Keefe.

Project Veritas, which has admitted it purchased the diary, has repeatedly said that its actions are protected by the First Amendment and that it believed the diary had been legally obtained. Although the investigation began during the Trump administration, Project Veritas has attacked the investigation as part of a vendetta being carried out by President Biden’s Justice Department.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan began the investigation in late October 2020, after it was alerted by Ashley Biden’s lawyers that Project Veritas had demanded an interview with her father about the contents of the diary, which included embarrassing disclosures about them.

She had left the diary at a friend’s home in Florida in 2020 and planned to return to retrieve it that year, according to interviews and court documents. The friend allowed Harris, who was in a bitter custody dispute and struggling financially, to stay at the home. Harris learned that Ashley Biden had been living there and found her belongings. She told Kurlander, who informed a Trump supporter and fundraiser, Elizabeth Fago.

Harris and Kurlander brought the diary to a Trump fundraiser at Fago’s home, where it was passed around, The New York Times reported last year. Fago ultimately helped direct Harris and Kurlander to Project Veritas.

Harris and Kurlander traveled to Manhattan to show Project Veritas the diary, telling operatives for the group that they found the diary and other items at the Delray Beach, Florida, home where Biden had been staying with a friend.

Project Veritas, which uses deceptive tactics to ensnare targets, undertook a wide ranging effort to authenticate the diary. As part of that effort, a Project Veritas operative tried to trick Biden during a phone call into confirming that the diary was indeed hers.

Project Veritas later contacted Biden’s lawyers about the diary in an attempt to secure an interview with her father before the election. Her lawyers told Project Veritas that the idea that she has abandoned the diary was “ludicrous” and accused the group of an “extortionate effort to secure an interview,” according to emails obtained by the Times. Her lawyers then contacted federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

In the midst of this exchange, a conservative website, National File, published excerpts from the diary Oct. 24, 2020, and the full diary two days later, but to little fanfare.

National File said it had obtained the diary from someone at another organization that was unwilling to publish it in the campaign’s final days. O’Keefe was said to be furious that the diary ended up in the hands of the National File.

In early November 2020 — just days after the election — Project Veritas arranged for Biden’s items to be taken to the Delray Beach Police Department, where a lawyer was captured on video saying the belongings might have been stolen. Police then contacted the FBI.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .

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