FILE — President Joe Biden walks on the beach with his daughter Ashley Biden, in Rehoboth Beach, Del., June 20, 2022. Two people have pleaded guilty in a scheme to sell a diary and other items belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley to the conservative group Project Veritas, prosecutors said Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File) Two Florida residents pleaded guilty in a scheme to sell a diary and other items belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter to the conservative group Project Veritas for $40,000, prosecutors said Thursday. Amy Harris and Robert Kurlander pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transfer stolen property interstate, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Damian Williams announced. “Harris and Kurlander sought to profit from the theft of another person’s personal property and are now facing federal felony charges as a result,” Williams said in a statement. Harris’ lawyer, Sam Talkin, said she has “accepted responsibility for her behavior and is looking forward to getting on with her life”. Kurlander’s lawyer, Florian Miedel, declined to comment. Harris, 40, of Palm Beach, and Kurlander, 58, face the possibility of up to five years in prison when convicted. While authorities have not identified Ashley Biden or the organization that paid him, details of the investigation are outlined in court filings and public statements from Project Veritas. Ashley Biden was moving out of a friend’s home in Delray Beach, Fla., in the spring of 2020 when she stashed her diary, tax records, a digital device with family photos, a cellphone and other items there, prosecutors said in a court. They said Harris moved into the same room, stole the items and contacted Kurlander, who was excited in a text message that he would help her make a “ton of money” from it, adding a verb before the “ton ». He eventually contacted Project Veritas, which requested photos of the material and then paid to have the diary and photos brought to New York, prosecutors said. Project Veritas employees met with the two in New York and sent them back to Florida to retrieve more of Ashley Biden’s belongings from the home, which they did and delivered the material to a local Project Veritas worker, who brought to New York, prosecutors. he said. The group paid the two $20,000 each, prosecutors said. Project Veritas, which describes itself as a news organization, is best known for conducting hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians. Founder James O’Keefe has included the organization’s methods as part of a long tradition of journalists using hidden cameras or wiretapping to uncover wrongdoing. “Project Veritas’ newsgathering was ethical and legal” in the diary case, the group said in a statement Thursday. The organization said it turned the magazine over to law enforcement after receiving it from “recipients” who claimed it had been abandoned in a room. “The lawful receipt of material later allegedly stolen by a journalist is routine, commonplace, and protected by the First Amendment,” Project Veritas added Thursday. Neither Project Veritas nor any staff have been charged with a crime. The FBI searched the group’s New York offices and the homes of some of its employees as part of the investigation. A New York court appointed a former federal judge to review material seized in those searches to ensure investigators could not review material protected by press privileges or client attorneys. Generally, media organizations are not liable for downloading material that could have been stolen if they were not involved in the theft. But there can be criminal liability for orchestrating theft and then knowingly paying for stolen material. “There is no First Amendment protection for theft and the interstate transfer of stolen property,” the U.S. attorney’s office wrote in a court filing last year. O’Keefe said Project Veritas ultimately did not release information from the diary because it could not confirm it belonged to Ashley Biden. He added that “there is no question that Project Veritas acted appropriately at every step.”
