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What specific entries and dates were described in Ashley Biden's stolen diary posts?
Executive summary
Reporting shows the stolen journal long traced to a 2020 theft and later sold to Project Veritas (reported purchase amounts range $20,000–$40,000) and that Ashley Biden acknowledged the diary’s existence in a 2024 court letter, which led fact-checkers like Snopes to change earlier “unproven” ratings [1] [2] [3]. Available sources document broad themes published from the leaked pages—drug recovery, relationships and traumatic childhood recollections including a line about “showers w/ my dad (probably not appropriate)”—but they do not provide a single, verified list of every specific posted entry and date [4] [5] [6].
1. How the diary entered public view — the theft and the chain of custody
Prosecutors say two Florida residents stole personal items including a diary left in a Delray Beach house in spring 2020 and later sold those materials to Project Veritas; court records and reporting tie the transaction to payments of roughly $20,000 apiece (some outlets report $40,000 total), and one thief was later sentenced [1] [7] [8]. Project Veritas has been central to the legal record because it paid for the material, even while claiming it did not publish the diary itself [1] [8].
2. What fact-checkers and outlets have said about authenticity
Initial public dissemination of diary pages came through outlets such as National File in late 2020, prompting long-running disputes about whether photos of pages were authentic. Snopes and other fact-checkers initially treated the content as unproven but updated their assessments after Ashley Biden wrote a letter to a judge in April 2024 acknowledging that her private journal had been stolen and could be viewed online; Snopes then changed a prior “unproven” rating to “true” regarding the diary’s provenance [6] [2] [3].
3. The content widely reported from the leaked pages
News reports and republished excerpts describe the diary as containing “highly personal” entries about Ashley Biden’s recovery from addiction, sexual relationships, and family dynamics. Multiple outlets quote or summarize passages alleging traumatic, hyper‑sexualized childhood memories and explicit passages such as a January 2019 line reported as “I remember having sex with friends @ a young age; showers w/ my dad (probably not appropriate),” which became a focal point of public controversy [4] [5] [9].
4. What the sources do NOT provide — dates and an itemized posting list
While several outlets published selections and summaries, available reporting in the provided sources does not present a verified, item-by-item catalog of every posted diary entry with original page dates and timestamps. Newsweek, BBC, ABC and other mainstream reports summarize themes and some specific quoted lines, but a complete, independently authenticated index of “specific entries and dates” published online is not shown in these sources [4] [9] [10].
5. Conflicting framing and political use of excerpts
Conservative outlets and commentators have used excerpted passages to allege misconduct or to attack public figures, while Ashley Biden’s own court letter and later statements emphasized that her private, stream‑of‑consciousness writings had been “distorted and manipulated.” Newsweek notes both the change in fact-checker posture about the diary’s ownership and Ashley Biden’s protest that the writings were taken out of context—illustrating competing frames over the same material [9].
6. Legal and ethical context around publication
Federal prosecutors treated the theft and interstate transport of the diary as criminal conduct; two people ultimately pleaded guilty in schemes to peddle the diary and other items, and judges have weighed First Amendment defenses raised by Project Veritas against statutes on stolen property [8] [1]. Reporting emphasizes that even when provenance is established, publishing stolen private material raises legal and ethical questions that remain central to coverage [7] [1].
7. What a reader should take away
Available sources corroborate that the diary existed, was stolen and later sold, and that some passages alleging childhood sexualized memories and struggles with addiction were published or quoted by outlets [1] [5] [4]. However, available reporting in the provided set does not supply a fully authenticated, date‑by‑date list of every leaked entry and its original dates; for that granular catalogue, primary access to the original pages or a forensic publication with provenance notes would be required, and such a resource is not presented in these sources [6] [4].
Limitations: This summary relies solely on the provided reporting and fact‑check updates; it therefore reflects what those outlets published and explicitly omits any claims not found in these sources [2] [3].