OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A Florida woman was sentenced to one month in prison for stealing and selling the diary of President Biden’s daughter to a conservative group.
As reported by Fox News, Aimee Harris was sentenced in a Manhattan federal courtroom, where the judge also sentenced her to three months of home confinement.
“I do not believe I am above the law,” Harris told the judge following a prosecutor’s request that she be sentenced to prison time after failing to appear for a number of sentencing dates after claiming she was busy caring for her two kids, ages 8 and 6.
“I’m a survivor of long-term domestic abuse and sexual trauma,” Harris said.
Harris pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in August 2022, admitting that she received $20,000 of the $40,000 Project Veritas paid for personal items belonging to the president’s daughter, Ashley Biden.
Project Veritas is known for conducting secret recordings that have caused embarrassment for news organizations, labor unions, and Democratic politicians.
During the court proceedings, a tearful Harris expressed remorse and offered an apology for publishing Ashley Biden’s personal writings without her consent. Harris admitted to taking the journal from a home in Delray Beach, Florida, where Biden had temporarily stored her belongings in 2020.
Along with the diary, Harris took a digital storage card, books, clothing, luggage, and “everything she could get her hands on,” hoping she “could make as much money as she could,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Sobelman told the court.
“She wanted to damage Ms. Biden’s father,” he said.
U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain, a Clinton appointee, scolded Harris, calling her actions “despicable and serious” and accusing her of exploiting the president’s daughter for profit in a bid to affect the 2020 presidential election.
Fox News added:
She further said Harris abused and strained the court system and “made promises to the court with no intention of keeping them.” Harris also missed multiple sentencing dates, prosecutors said.
The judge noted that Harris and a co-defendant, Robert Kurlander, had tried unsuccessfully to sell Ashley Biden’s belongings to then-President Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Defense attorney Anthony Cecutti appealed for leniency, urging that Harris be spared from incarceration. He emphasized her tumultuous life experiences and her dedication to nurturing her children amid the aftermath of abuse and violence. Cecutti argued that the trial itself had already served as a form of punishment for Harris, compounded by her ongoing struggle to secure stable employment.
“She carries the shame and stigma of her actions,” he said.
Harris is scheduled to report to a federal prison located in Florida in July.
When portions of the diary were published by some media outlets in November 2021, the passages appeared to indicate she was taking showers with her dad that she felt were “probably not appropriate.”
The reports came as the FBI raided the offices and homes of Project Veritas journalists who reportedly had possession of the diary.
“So if the FBI raided someone’s house over Ashley Biden’s diary being stolen, that means Ashley Biden’s diary and the accusations in it were real. Are there any real journalists willing to ask Joe about it?” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) wrote on the then-Twitter platform at the time.
“More importantly— Ashley Biden is the SECOND person in the Biden family that has made incestuous sexual allegations. Do not forget about Hunter’s laptop and the text messages about his niece. These are accounts DIRECTLY FROM the Biden family. Not conspiracies,” conservative commentator and author Candace Owens added in response to Boebert’s post.
More importantly— Ashley Biden is the SECOND person in the Biden family that has made incestuous sexual allegations. Do not forget about Hunter’s lap top and the text messages about his niece.
These are accounts DIRECTLY FROM the Biden family. Not conspiracies. https://t.co/WTcXTLFPMo
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) November 5, 2021
