Pleads guilty to scheme to sell Joe Biden’s daughter’s diary

Two Florida residents have pleaded guilty to selling the diaries and other items of President Joe Biden’s daughter to conservative group Project Veritas for $40,000 (£33,805), prosecutors said.

Aimee Harris and Robert Kurland pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport stolen property interstate, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams’ office said.

“Harris and Kurland are now convicted of federal felony charges for attempting to profit from the theft of other people’s personal property,” Mr Williams said in a statement.

Harris’ attorney, Sam Tarkin, said she “has taken responsibility for her actions and looks forward to moving on with her life”. Kurlander’s attorney, Florian Miedel, declined to comment.

While authorities haven’t identified Ashley Biden or the organization that made the payment, details of the investigation have been laid out in court filings and Project Veritas’ public statements.

Ms. Biden moved out of a friend’s house in Delray Beach, Florida, in the spring of 2020 when she kept diaries, tax records, digital devices with family photos, cellphones and other items in a courtroom, prosecutors said in a court filing. There.

They say Harris then moved into the same room, stole the items and got in touch with Kurland, who contacted Project Veritas, who asked for photos of the material before paying the pair to have it Take it to New York.

Prosecutors said Project Veritas staff met the couple in New York and sent them back to Florida to retrieve more of Ms Biden’s belongings from the home, which they did and handed over the materials to A local Project Veritas crew, who brought it to New York. .

Prosecutors said the militant group, which identified itself as a news organisation, paid $20,000 (£16,908).

Project Veritas said it received the diary from a “whistleblower” who said it had been abandoned in a room. The activist group said it turned over the magazine to law enforcement and never did anything illegal.

Founder James O’Keefe said Project Veritas ultimately did not release information from the diary because it could not confirm that it belonged to Ms. Biden.

Project Veritas is best known for performing hidden camera stings that have embarrassed the news media, labor groups and Democratic politicians.