FBI RAIDS New York apartments linked to Project Veritas in investigation into how Ashley Biden’s personal diary was stolen and published online
- The FBI searched two homes, one in New York and one in Westchester County
- The addresses were linked to the conservative website Project Veritas
- Founder James O’Keefe confirmed the searches in a video on Friday
- He said Project Veritas received the diary from a ‘tipster’ and they tried to give it back to the first family
- In October, Ashley Biden reported multiple items had been stolen in a burglary
- Trump’s DOJ then launched an investigation under AG Bill Barr
The FBI conducted a raid on the apartment of Project Veritas operative Spencer Meads and the conservative outlet’s Westchester office after it obtained a stolen diary from President Biden’s daughter Ashley in the week before the 2020 election.
Project Veritas did not publish the diary, as founder James O’Keefe said in a video published Friday that the group could not confirm the authenticity of the diary, its belonging to Ashley Biden or that the contents of the diary were truthful.
The investigation, ordered by the Department of Justice (DOJ), was carried out by both federal investigators and federal prosecutors in Manhattan, according to the New York Times.
The FBI searched two locations in New York linked to Project Veritas as part of an investigation into how Ashley Biden’s diary was stolen and published online. She is pictured center at her father’s 2021 inauguration
O’Keefe said Project Veritas had been offered the diary by tipsters who said that the then-Democratic candidate’s daughter left it in a room where she stayed and the tipsters stayed after she departed. O’Keefe said that the tipsters said they were shopping it around to other outlets to see who would offer money for it.
O’Keefe then claimed that once they got ahold of the journal, they attempted to return it to an attorney representing Ashley. The attorney refused to authenticate the diary, so he said they then turned it into law enforcement.
But another conservative news site, National File, did publish the full 112-page diary, on Oct. 28, 2020, one week before the election. It was largely ignored by media and other conservative news sites that were likely skeptical of its authenticity. The Department of Justice’s involvement, however, boosts the likelihood that the writings are genuinely those of the first daughter.
National File claimed to have obtained the diary from a whistleblower who worked for a media organization that had declined to publish the story.
Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe issued a video statement on Friday confirming the searches. He also claimed that he had received the diary from a ‘tipster’ who claimed Ashley had ‘abandoned the diary in her room
O’Keefe said in the video that Project Veritas had received a grand jury subpoena and the DOJ had asked, but not ordered, the group not to disclose the existence of the subpoena. O’Keefe said that he did not know who had leaked the raid to the New York Times.
‘In what world is the alleged theft of a diary investigated by the president’s FBI and his DOJ? A diary. This fed investigation smacks of politics,’ O’Keefe said.
The DOJ under President Trump had opened an investigation into theft of the diary after a member of the Biden team reported it to authorities in October 2020. The representative of the Biden family had said that several of Ashley Biden’s belongings had been stolen, according to the Times.
Ashley, 40, is the sole daughter of Joe, 78, and First Lady Jill, 70. She is married to Philadelphia-based surgeon Dr. Howard Klein.
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