Ashley Biden, who is the daughter of President Joe Biden, wrote a letter to a judge explaining that she wouldn’t attend the sentencing of the woman who stole her diary. She said it would only make her feel worse.
The judge, Laura Taylor Swain, released the emotional letter more than three weeks after sentencing Aimee Harris to one month in jail and three months of home detention.
In her letter, Ashley Biden expressed her hope that Harris’s punishment would prevent others from going through similar pain. She said the sadness she feels will never completely go away but urged the judge to hold Harris accountable to prevent similar actions in the future.
Ashley Biden also requested that Harris be given prison time followed by a long period of probation. The letter was made public after The New York Times requested it, with no objections from Ashley Biden or the prosecutors. Harris didn’t take a stance on the request.
Harris, who is 41 years old, was also ordered to serve three years of probation and give up the $20,000 she made from selling the stolen diary.
She pleaded guilty in August 2022 to working with Robert Kurlander, 61, to steal Biden’s diary and other belongings from her former home in Florida. They then sold these items to the right-wing group Project Veritas.
Although Project Veritas didn’t publish the diary, it was later released by another right-wing outlet just before the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden won.
At Harris’s sentencing, a prosecutor said she stole the diary to hurt Joe Biden politically.
Kurlander, who also admitted guilt, will be sentenced on Oct. 25.
A lawyer representing Biden attended Harris’s sentencing on April 9. They said they wouldn’t add more to what Biden wrote in her letter to Sweeney.
“I’m really sad I have to write this letter because my journal was stolen and sold for money,” Biden wrote in her April 8 letter, per a CNBC report.
“I guess the point of the theft was to spread lies by twisting my thoughts,” Biden wrote. “I won’t go to the sentencing tomorrow because it would only make me feel worse. But still, I ask the judge to give the defendant prison time.”
Biden said Harris’s theft of her diary and other items was a horrible form of bullying and a big invasion of her privacy.
“After being a victim of a crime when I was younger, I developed PTSD,” Biden wrote, without saying what the crime was.
“The journal that was stolen was part of my healing process. I’m just a regular person, but I was targeted because my dad was running for President. In other words, the progress I made to get over my trauma was ruined by Ms. Harris’s actions.”
Biden also wrote, “Ms. Harris’s actions caused me a lot of anxiety, fear, and feeling bullied, where my thoughts were always twisted and used against me.”
Even though the theft happened more than three years ago when Joe Biden was running for President, “because it got a lot of attention — just as Ms. Harris wanted — I’m still hurt by it.”
“I’ll always have to deal with my personal journal being online,” Biden wrote. “People keep misinterpreting what I wrote and making false accusations that hurt my reputation and the people I care about,” the CNBC report stated.
“Her actions not only hurt me again but caused me a lot of pain,” the letter said.
In asking Sweeney to sentence Harris to prison and a long probation, Ashley wrote: “She should be responsible for what she did.”
“Not only did she show no morals, but she also doesn’t respect the law,” Biden wrote. “I’ve spent a lot of my life speaking up for people who can’t. I’m lucky to have a voice, and I use it every day to make sure bullies are held accountable.”
“Lastly, I’m worried that if she doesn’t go to jail, it’ll send a message to her and others that it’s okay to hurt and use others for your own benefit, no matter how much it hurts them,” Biden wrote. “Please show that these kinds of harmful actions won’t be accepted.”
