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What specific entries and dates are alleged to be in Ashley Biden’s diary and who first reported them?
Executive summary
Reporting shows pages from a handwritten journal attributed to Ashley Biden were first published in October 2020 by the conservative outlet National File, which says it obtained the diary via a whistleblower; Project Veritas acquired the stolen items (reportedly for $40,000) but did not publish the full diary [1]" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1] [2] [3]. Court filings, sentencing of a thief and Ashley Biden’s own statements have been used by fact‑checkers to treat the diary as authentic while many mainstream outlets note its contents and provenance remain controversial [4] [3] [2].
1. How the diary’s pages first reached the public: “National File’s October 2020 publication”
The first widely noted public release of what were presented as Ashley Biden’s diary pages came in October 2020, when National File published “a copy of the complete diary” and posted dozens of pages, claiming a whistleblower source provided them [1]" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1]. Multiple subsequent reports and investigations traced the material’s route through Florida, two defendants who later pleaded guilty to stealing items, and an apparent leak from inside Project Veritas to a conservative reporter [5] [6] [7].
2. Who first reported specific entries alleging showering or molestation: National File’s role
Claims that the diary included passages describing “showering with her father” and wondering “Was I molested” appear in the National File publication and were widely amplified by right‑of‑center outlets [1]" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1]. RealClearInvestigations and other follow‑ups report that National File was the outlet that first published the pages in late October 2020 and that a Project Veritas source likely leaked the pages to that outlet [6] [7].
3. Project Veritas: purchaser, possessor, but not publisher
Court and reporting detail that Project Veritas paid approximately $40,000 for items that included the diary and that Project Veritas ultimately chose not to publish the full diary, citing verification concerns; prosecutors say two Florida residents sold the stolen items to Project Veritas [3] [2]. Reporting also says an internal Project Veritas employee or source leaked the diary to National File, according to National File’s publisher [6] [7].
4. Legal trace: theft, pleas, sentencing and the paper trail
Federal charging and sentencing documents show Aimee Harris and a co‑defendant were involved in stealing Ashley Biden’s belongings from a Delray Beach property in 2020 and later selling them; Harris pleaded guilty and was sentenced, and prosecutors described the items as sold to Project Veritas for $40,000 [8] [3]. Coverage by BBC, The Guardian and AP‑based outlets recounts those prosecutions and confirms the basic chain of possession [9] [8] [3].
5. Authentication and Ashley Biden’s response: what reporters relied on
Fact‑checking outlets such as Snopes updated earlier assessments after Ashley Biden wrote a letter to a New York judge in April 2024 noting the diary had been stolen and that the private writings were viewable online; Snopes said that testimony influenced a change from “unproven” to “true” regarding the diary’s authenticity [10] [3]. Newsweek and other outlets note Ashley Biden’s letter, her statements that the writings had been “distorted and manipulated,” and that she sought redress in court [4] [2].
6. What the published entries specifically allege and how they’re described in reporting
The pages circulated by National File and summarized by subsequent conservative and some mainstream outlets contain passages described as reflecting “hyper‑sexualized” experiences in childhood, references to showering with her father and the writer’s own question about possible molestation; those passages are cited repeatedly in conservative reporting [1]" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1] [11]. Mainstream outlets and fact‑checkers caution that some contextual details and provenance questions persisted even as courts addressed the theft [2] [3].
7. Competing perspectives and remaining limits in the public record
Conservative publishers treated the diary entries as a scoop and emphasized the sensational passages [1]" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1] [11]. Project Veritas maintained it did not publish the diary and has argued about how it obtained materials; some reporting suggests an employee leak rather than authorized disclosure [6] [7]. Mainstream outlets emphasize the legal saga, the theft convictions, and Ashley Biden’s statement that her writings were misused, while fact‑checkers updated authenticity assessments based on her court letter [4] [3] [10]. Available sources do not mention a full, independently verified, day‑by‑day log of every specific diary entry and date beyond the National File pages and later summaries; prosecutors and courts focused on chain of possession rather than validating each line in public forensic detail [1]" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1] [8] [3].
Bottom line: National File first published the diary pages in October 2020 and gave the initial public airing to the most widely cited passages; Project Veritas purchased the stolen items (reported $40,000) and figures in the chain of custody, and subsequent legal filings, a theft prosecution and Ashley Biden’s court letter shaped later assessments of authenticity and context [1]" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1] [3] [4].