FBI raids for Joe Biden’s daughter’s diary

The home of a founder of a fringe conservative group backed by Donald Trump was searched last Thursday.

Excerpts from Ashley Biden’s diary were published in the run-up to the presidential election last year.

The FBI has mounted raids against a fringe conservative group as part of an investigation into how excerpts from a diary stolen from President Joe Biden’s daughter were published by a right-wing website last year.

James O’Keefe, 37, the founder of Project Veritas, said his home was searched on Thursday.

He said his group had received a diary last year from “tipsters” who claimed it belonged to Ashley Biden, 30, but he could not verify its authenticity.

He said it had been handed to law enforcement officials.

Excerpts from the diary were posted on a right-wing website in the run-up to last year’s presidential election.

Project Veritas, partly funded by a donation from Donald Trump’s family charity, has built a reputation for stings on media and trade union figures, releasing videos that critics say are heavily edited and distort the facts.

In one of its operations, in which officials in Washington were recorded criticising Mr Trump, the group employed women to carry out entrapment operations. They were trained by a former agent of MI6, the UK’s foreign intelligence service, who in turn was allegedly recruited by Erik Prince, founder of security company Blackwater and a long-time Trump ally.

The Biden family reported a diary kept by Ms Biden, the President’s only child with his ­second wife, Jill, was among items stolen in a burglary in ­October 2020, a month before the election.

Dozens of handwritten pages were posted online but largely ignored by US media, amid uncertainty over provenance. The website claimed a whistleblower from the media organisation that passed it on had a recording of Mr Biden admitting it was hers.

An investigation was started by William Barr, the attorney-general under Mr Trump. Mr O’Keefe said he had received a subpoena from a grand jury set up in the case. He condemned the use of state investigators to pursue the theft: “Ms Biden’s father’s Department of Justice appears to be investigating the situation, claiming the diary was stolen. We don’t know if it was, but it begs the question: In what world is the alleged theft of a diary investigated by the President’s FBI and his Department of Justice?”

The Times