EXCLUSIVE: Florida woman who found Ashley Biden's diary in 'halfway house' is under FBI investigation for SELLING the journal in which president's daughter recalled 'showers w/ my dad (probably not appropriate)' and details of her drug and sex addiction
- Aimee Harris is under investigation for selling Ashley Biden's diary after the president's daughter left it behind at a Palm Beach 'halfway house'
- Previous reports claimed the Bidens reported it stolen in an alleged burglary, but DailyMail.com has learned Harris is not being investigated for theft
- 'It's her selling of the property that could be considered a crime. And the fact Ashley is the president's daughter kicks it to a different legal level,' a well-placed source said
- Harris, 39, moved into a Palm Beach home and found the diary under the mattress shortly after Ashley moved back to Philadelphia in 2020
- She is said to have later passed the private journal around at a Republican fundraiser before selling it for $40,000 to right wing organization Project Veritas
- The diary contained shocking and sensitive information, such as details about her chronic drug abuse, sex addiction, and being 'hyper-sexualized' in her youth
- 'I remember having sex with friends @ a young age; showers w/ my dad (probably not appropriate),' she wrote in a January 2019 entry
A Florida woman who found Ashley Biden's private diary is being investigated by the FBI – not for stealing the journal but for selling it, DailyMail.com has learned.
The diary's explosive contents include Ashley's speculation that showering with her father, then-Senator Joe Biden, as a young girl may have contributed to her sex addiction.
'I remember having sex with friends @ a young age; showers w/ my dad (probably not appropriate),' she wrote in a January 2019 entry
After a stint in rehab, the president's daughter, now 41, briefly lived in a Palm Beach home often used by recovering addicts, and left her diary there when she moved back to Philadelphia in June, 2020.
Single mother of two Aimee Harris, 39, also fresh out of rehab, moved in weeks later and found it under the mattress.
Harris allegedly showed the diary at a Republican fundraising event and sold it for $40,000 to right wing organization Project Veritas.
The president's daughter wrote that she was 'hyper-sexualized [at] a young age', details her chronic drug abuse, affairs outside her marriage, how her finances were 'down to the wire' and how she made Joe cry with worry over her ahead of a Democratic primary debate.
Her writings also show Ashley may have been using drugs while helping campaign for her father's presidential bid in 2019.
Aimee Harris, 39, is under investigation by the FBI for selling Ashley Biden's personal diary to a right wing organization last year, DailyMail.com has learned. She is pictured in Florida earlier this month
Ashley Biden, 41, the only child of Joe Biden's marriage to First Lady Jill Biden, left the private journal behind at a home in Palm Beach, Florida after she moved to Philadelphia in June 2020
The contents of the diary were published on a right wing news site which revealed Ashley had questioned whether showering with her father as a young girl could have contributed to her sex addiction. The father and daughter are pictured together in 1987
It was published on a right wing news site less than two weeks before the 2020 election, but received little attention at the time.
The New York Times first reported a Justice Department probe over the diary in November 2021, and confirmed that the diary is authentic.
But the Times neglected to include in the story that its pages contained deeply concerning information that the president's own daughter believes his alleged showering with her could have helped create her sex addiction.
The Times's November story said that a Biden family representative reported the diary and other items belonging to Ashley were stolen in an alleged burglary.
But a source close to the investigation told DailyMail.com that Harris is not being investigated for theft.
'The feds now aren't saying it was illegal to find the diary,' the source said. 'Nor are they saying Aimee stole anything.
'But it's her selling the property of another that could be considered a crime. And the fact Ashley is the president's daughter kicks it to a different legal level.'
Harris allegedly teamed up with a friend, convicted money-launderer Robert Kurlander, to sell the diary to Project Veritas, known for its undercover sting operations against Democrat politicians and affiliated organizations.
When reached at his home in Jupiter, Kurlander declined to comment.
Ashley is the youngest of Biden's children and the only one from his marriage to First Lady Jill Biden. Dates written in the diary run from January 25 to September 18 of 2019 when she was in her late 30s.
In an entry on January 30, Ashley wrote about her sex addiction the day before her Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
The private journal had fallen into Harris's lap at a time when her attempt to retain custody of her own kids over her ex-husband was in jeopardy
Harris contacted her friend Robert Kurlander, 58 (right) who had a previous conviction for laundering drug money in the 1990s and the two are reported to have hatched a plan to sell the document to GOP operatives in search of an edge for the upcoming election
James O'Keefe, the president of right-wing organization Project Veritas, bought the rights to publish the diary for $40,000, wiring $20,000 each to Harris and Kurlander
Robert Kurlander tweeted at Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in October 2020, just weeks before election day, telling them that 'Ashley and Hunter are disasters'
'I have always been boy crazy,' she wrote. 'Hyper-sexualized @ a young age ... I remember somewhat being sexualized with [a family member]; I remember having sex with friends @ a young age; showers w/ my dad (probably not appropriate).'
Despite entertaining the possibility that Joe could have been inappropriate with her as a child, at other times Ashley appeared grateful to her parents.
'I relapsed. F***ing again,' she wrote on March 16. 'The difference this time around was that I told Elizabeth, Mom + Dad this morning. Mom + Dad worried but incredibly supportive. I am so lucky to have them on my side.'
But four months later, her continued drug abuse left her on the brink of financial ruin and her father in tears.
'My dad cried on the phone saying he has the debate in a week + 'now has to worry about you.' she wrote in a July 27 entry.
'And he cried. Maybe he knows what he is doing + it's worked but my feelings of guilt often are overwhelming.'
She added that her finances were 'down to the wire' and under a list headed with the word 'Resentful' she wrote 'Dad – $, control'. Under a second list titled 'Hurt', she wrote 'Dad – hurting self, lying'.
Ashley was also having serious trouble in her marriage.
According to her diary entries, she was having affairs with men other than her husband, surgeon Howard Krein, now 55.
'Here I am talking about another man when I am married! It all feels strange,' she wrote in February 2019.
'Started hanging out with a new guy… It's been refreshing to be able to kiss another man.'
The president's daughter has a long history of drug arrests and scandals and wrote about her battles with addiction in her diary. She is pictured in a photo found on her brother Hunter's laptop
Ashley pictured with her parents at the Democratic National Convention in 2009
Ashley has been on the campaign trail since she was a young girl. She is pictured the day after her sixth birthday being held by half-brother Hunter, alongside late half-brother Beau and her parents in 1987
'Why am I feeling this way and do I need more time to try and figure it out? Does this mean that I am still into my husband?'
Other entries suggest she may have been campaigning for Joe while still using drugs.
On August 1, 2019 Ashley wrote: 'It's time to get back home + work on the campaign. Headquarters in Philadelphia – spent good portion of that time on the road. The work is hard. Nothing compares to that rush/high/excitement of getting (sic). I am searching for ways to escape.'
Ashley's diary was reportedly passed around to guests at September 2020 Trump campaign fundraiser hosted by businesswoman Elizabeth Fago (pictured)
But two weeks later she wrote that it had been only five days since she had got high.
'There is anxiety + not sure where it comes from… maybe its 'lack' of having substances – it's been 5 full days. It's been the longest I've gone in a while,' she wrote.
'I think the longest period of abstinence has been 10 days since basically March,' she added in another later entry, though she told herself that after her stint in the Caron rehab center in Pennsylvania that month she would never use drugs again.
When asled for comment a representative for Asley Biden told DailyMail.com: 'We refuse to engage with an inquiry like this, which simply doesn't merit a response.'
The president's daughter has a long history of drug arrests and scandals.
She was arrested in 1999 for possession of marijuana, when she was an 18-year-old student at Tulane University in New Orleans. She was released on a $1,000 bond, and the local district attorney declined to prosecute.
Two years later the president's daughter was arrested again for underage drinking in Howard County, Maryland. She was issued a bench warrant after she failed to show up to a hearing for the charge.
Ashley later pleaded guilty and was fined $125.
Fago, pictured at the White House on election night, had just been nominated by Trump to a seat on the National Cancer Advisory Board. Sources told DailyMail.com the FBI has interviewed Fago
Some diary entries suggested Ashley may have been campaigning for Joe while still using drugs
Court records show that later in 2001 she was evicted from her home in New Orleans.
She had a third run-in with the law in August 2002, when she was arrested for allegedly obstructing officers trying to break up a bar fight in Chicago.
She reportedly 'blocked the officer's path and made intimidating statements' after one of the assailants threw a bottle at the police.
In March 2009, an anonymous informant approached the New York Post with a video they claimed showed Ashley snorting cocaine at a party in Delaware that month. The paper declined to purchase the video but ran a story about it.
The newspaper reported that in the video, a woman resembling Ashley snorted lines of white powder on a desk through a red straw, and later shouted 'Shut the f*** up' to others in the room.
The Post reported that lawyers who were touting the video for their client claimed 'At one point she pretty much complains that the line isn't big enough,' and that 'She talks about her dad,' adding that they had been offered $250,000 for the footage.
The footage has not been independently verified or obtained by DailyMail.com. The lawyer representing the seller reportedly dropped his client shortly after the claims emerged.
Like Ashley, Aimee Harris was struggling with addiction and was in dire financial straits in 2019.
She had been unable to make her $900 rent in a down-market home in Lake Worth, Florida, according to Palm Beach County court records. Credit card companies had followed her there from West Virginia and were hounding her over unpaid bills.
In 2014 she fled an allegedly abusive relationship with Wrigley's gum heir William DeGray III, accusing him in court filings of punching her, spitting at her and throwing her phone against a wall.
Harris later had two children with Chris Bove, the son of a Palm Beach socialite and a major Rhode Island Chevrolet dealer. But that relationship also ended in court.
Ashley Bide has been married to Philadelphia-based surgeon Dr. Howard Krein since 2012. Diary entries revealed she was having extramarital affairs
Bove, 35, filed an emergency motion for custody of daughter Grace, 6, and son Dylan, 5, in 2018, claiming Harris was off her bipolar medication. He claimed she had threatened to drown the children in the nearby Intracoastal Waterway and 'bash their heads into a wall', threw televisions at him and punched holes in walls.
A Palm Beach County judge was somewhat skeptical of the claims, ordering a joint parenting plan giving each parent two days on and off.
Harris and Bove traded allegations of drug use, and according to a source close to the case, Harris checked herself into an inpatient rehab center in Delray Beach, Florida, in 2020.
'The case file speaks for itself,' Bove said when reached for comment.
Upon her release in July that year, a former patient allowed Harris to stay for a few weeks in a house in Lake Worth, not far from the rehab center – the same house Ashley had vacated one month earlier.
It was there under the mattress she found the diary as well as a duffel bag of dirty clothes.
The book of shocking, embarrassing and sensitive information on the would-be president's daughter fell into Harris's lap at a time when her attempt to retain custody of her own kids was in jeopardy.
Bove had accused Harris of not abiding by their parenting plan for weeks at a time, and in August 2020 her then-attorney John Schutz filed a lien against her for unpaid bills.
The desperate woman contacted her friend Robert Kurlander, 58, who had a previous conviction for laundering drug money in the 1990s.
In court filings prosecutors suggested Project Veritas was complicit in the theft of Ashley's belongings. O'Keefe (pictured) has denied any wrongdoing, and says it is a media organization doing its job
O'Keefe's apartment in this block in Westchester County was raided last year
According to the source, the two hatched a plan to sell the document to GOP operatives in search of an edge for the November presidential election.
Kurlander, who lives in a $1.2million house in the wealthy West Palm Beach suburb of Jupiter, got himself and Harris invited to a September 2020 Trump campaign fundraiser a couple of miles from his house.
The party was hosted by local businesswoman Elizabeth Fago, who had just been nominated by Trump to a seat on the National Cancer Advisory Board.
The diary was passed around the fundraiser's guests, the source said, and someone pointed out the most salacious passages.
The FBI has interviewed Fago, 71, according to the source close to the investigation.
The Times reported that three days before the event, Fago's daughter contacted Project Veritas through their tip line.
Harris and Kurlander flew to New York with the diary and met with Veritas operatives at a hotel on Manhattan's West Side, according to the Times.
Veritas bought the rights to publish the diary for $40,000, wiring $20,000 each to Harris and Kurlander.
But the organization's founder James O'Keefe decided not to publish, saying in an internal email it would be 'characterized as a cheap shot' – but then tried unsuccessfully to use it as leverage for an interview with Joe Biden.
A copy of the diary was instead leaked by a Veritas staffer to right wing news site National File, which published excerpts on October 24, 2020, just days before the election. The site later uploaded the whole thing.
Hunter Biden, 52, is half-brother to Ashley. Both have suffered with addiction problems,as have at least three other members of the president's family
The Bidens reported the diary and other belongings as stolen, sparking a Justice Department probe.
A year later in November 2021, federal agents raided O'Keefe's home and those of two Veritas operatives.
In court filings prosecutors suggested the organization was complicit in the theft of Ashley's belongings.
Veritas has denied any wrongdoing, and says it is a media organization doing its job.
The source close to the investigation said the DoJ is now looking into charges against Harris over the sale of the diary, rather than its alleged theft.
'In the end, Aimee didn't get to do anything with the money she got,' the source told DailyMail.com.
SHARE THIS ARTICLE
'She ended up paying her lawyers and she's still fighting for her kids. It's not like she bought something ostentatious with the money.
'If someone tried to queer the election in favor of Trump, that's not really Aimee's doing. She had no idea the effect this thing would have.
'She's a simple, straight-forward soul who's been manipulated by others in an attempt to take down the president of the United States.
'She's been homeless, moving from place to place throughout Palm Beach County. In the end, she's been caught in something much bigger than her.'
DailyMail.com made numerous attempts to contact Harris, who did not respond to text messages and declined comment through her former lawyer, Guy Fronstin in Boca Raton, Florida.
Fronstin dropped Harris as a client on May 2.
He was replaced by Sanford Talkin, a New York City criminal defense attorney who defended union boss James W. Cahill when he was indicted for racketeering, fraud and bribery in October 2020.
No comments:
Post a Comment