Who first obtained or published Ashley Biden's diary and what is the chain of custody?

1. How the diary moved from a Florida home to political media — a chain of custody emerges

The publicly reported chain of custody begins with Aimee Harris stealing items from a Florida residence in 2020 where Ashley Biden had left personal belongings; Harris then involved Robert Kurlander, who helped arrange sale of the material to outside actors, culminating in Project Veritas acquiring the diary for reportedly $40,000 ^{[4] [3]}. After Project Veritas took possession, The National File published extracts—making it the first outlet to put parts of the diary into wide circulation—though accounts diverge about who initiated each transfer and why ^{[1] [2]}. The chronology shows a theft-to-market pathway that moved private material into partisan media channels, and federal prosecutors later pursued criminal charges against the thieves rather than media organizations that published excerpts ^[3].

2. Legal outcomes and admissions — what courts and plea deals revealed

Federal prosecutions produced guilty pleas from Harris and Kurlander for conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines, and sentencing details include jail time and home detention for Harris; these pleas confirm the criminal origin of the material and establish key links in the chain of custody from theft to sale ^{[3] [5]}. Separately, Ashley Biden filed court papers acknowledging the diary entries were hers while contesting how excerpts were presented; that court acknowledgment is a factual anchor on authenticity, but she and her lawyers argued that published passages were selectively presented and potentially misleading about context and intent ^{[1] [4]}. The legal record thus confirms both origin and authenticity while also documenting disputes over interpretation and publication practices.

3. Who published first, and why accounts differ — publication versus possession

Multiple sources converge on the point that The National File published diary excerpts first, while Project Veritas is identified as the entity that purchased and held the materials, sometimes described as the intermediary that sought to place the diary with sympathetic outlets or campaigns ^{[1] [2]}. Some reporting highlights Project Veritas’ role in acquiring materials but not publishing them directly—portraying Project Veritas as an operator that attempted to leverage the diary for broader political impact—while other accounts emphasize direct possession and editorial choices by the organization ^{[6] [7]}. The dispute between “who had it” and “who published it” reflects different investigative emphases: criminal tracing of theft versus media-path tracing of dissemination.

4. The political and editorial context — motives, agendas, and selective release

Reporting notes that operatives tied to conservative outlets and campaigns figured in efforts to monetize or publicize the diary, and commentators have flagged the selective release of excerpts as politically motivated given timing and outlet selection ^{[5] [2]}. Project Veritas and right-leaning websites operated within a media ecosystem where politically valuable content can be bought, withheld, or selectively released to maximize impact; this shapes perceptions of intent and raises questions about editorial ethics and journalistic practice when material originates from criminal theft ^{[6] [5]}. The criminal prosecution focused on the theft, while media actors faced scrutiny over whether publication choices amplified private trauma for political ends.

5. Points of disagreement and unresolved details — gaps that matter

Sources agree on theft, sale, Project Veritas’ involvement, and The National File’s role in publication, but they diverge on finer points: whether Project Veritas directly published, the timeline of attempts to offer material to campaigns, and the completeness of the chain of custody between initial theft and final publication ^{[1] [6]}. Some accounts emphasize immediate political targeting; others stress journalistic acquisition and editorial decision-making. Those differences reflect varying access to prosecutors’ evidence, company records, and internal communications among involved actors, leaving some linkage details publicly unresolved even after guilty pleas and court acknowledgments ^{[5] [7]}.

6. What this means going forward — credibility, context, and accountability

The combination of criminal pleas that establish theft, Ashley Biden’s court acknowledgment of authenticity, and the partisan pathways for publication creates a factual matrix: the diary was stolen, sold, possessed by Project Veritas, and excerpts were first published by The National File, but debates remain about context, editorial intent, and the ethics of publishing stolen personal material ^{[3] [4] [1]}. Accountability thus splits across criminal law (focused on the thieves) and public scrutiny of media practice (focused on outlets that chose to publish). The record compiled so far supports the core chain-of-custody narrative while leaving open questions about intermediary decision-making and full documentary trails between theft and publication ^{[2] [6]}.