Fogbow

A Florida mother was sentenced Tuesday to a month in prison and three months of home confinement for stealing and selling President Joe Biden’s daughter’s diary four years ago to the conservative group Project Veritas.

Aimee Harris was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who called the Palm Beach, Florida, woman’s actions “despicable.”

Harris pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in August 2022, admitting that she received $20,000 of the $40,000 that was paid by Project Veritas for personal items belonging to the president’s daughter, Ashley Biden.

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A tearful Harris apologized for enabling Ashley Biden’s private writings to be sold after she found the diary and other items at a friend’s Delray Beach, Florida, home in 2020, where prosecutors said Ashley Biden believed her items were safely stored after she temporarily stayed there in spring 2020.

“I do not believe I am above the law,” Harris said after a prosecutor urged a prison sentence following her failure to appear at numerous sentencing dates on the grounds that she was consumed with caring for her two children, ages 8 and 6.

“I’m a survivor of long term domestic abuse and sexual trauma,” she told the judge.

Florida mother

pipistrelle wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2024 4:21 pm

Florida mother

How is this relevant?

Harris pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in August 2022, admitting that she received $20,000 of the $40,000 that was paid by Project Veritas for personal items belonging to the president’s daughter, Ashley Biden.

"I will forever have to deal with the fact that my personal journal can be viewed online," Ashley Biden wrote to a district court judge.

Claim:

A diary authored by U.S. President Joe Biden's daughter, Ashley Biden, describes showers taken with her father when she was a child as "probably not appropriate."

True.

Note: On April 29, 2024, Snopes changed the rating of this fact check from "Unproven" to "True" based on testimony provided by Ashley Biden. In an April 8 letter to a New York judge requesting jail time for one of the two people convicted of stealing her diary, Biden wrote, "I will forever have to deal with the fact that my personal journal can be viewed online."

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An often cited page from that "leaked diary," which chronicled its author's addiction recovery in intimate detail, makes reference to sexual trauma and poses questions in search of an explanation for being "hyper-sexualized @ a young age." Along with mentions of not liking to visit a certain family's house, "being sexualized" with a female friend, and "having sex with friends @ a young age," the author noted taking "showers with my dad (probably not appropriate)."

* * *

In April 2024, the New York Times published a letter that Ashley Biden wrote to the Judge in Harris' case as part of her sentencing process in which Biden referenced the harm caused by the publication of photographs of her journal online, confirming that the words published online were hers while noting that they have been misinterpreted:

Ashley Biden wrote: After being the victim of a crime in my early twenties, I developed PTSD. The journal that was stolen was part of my efforts to heal.

* * *

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.

bob wrote: ↑Tue May 14, 2024 3:44 pm In other words, Snopes reads her letter as implicitly confirming the existence of the contents (that are routinely misinterpreted).