A funny thing happened on my way to the editing desk today: I ran across a familiar name and was once again reminded of just how small a world it is. Okay, truth be told, I was already at the editing desk today when I began to edit this article by Nick Arama: WATCH: Project Veritas Produces Audio of Ashley Biden Confirming Diary Is Hers, How DOJ Pursued Them.
Like many, I was quasi-familiar with the story of yet another one of President Joe Biden’s children who seemed to have abandoned very personal information in the darnedest place. We don’t see or hear nearly as much about Ashley Biden, the 42-year-old daughter of Joe and Jill Biden, as we do her older brother, Hunter. (He casts a long shadow, that one.) Nevertheless, the story goes that Ashley had left behind a diary and several other belongings at a house she was renting in Florida. And an anonymous tipster had contacted the investigative journalism outfit Project Veritas to let them know she had the items, including luggage, clothing, pills, and the aforementioned diary, which the tipster described as “pretty crazy.”
NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN: Ashley Biden Confirms Famed Diary Is Hers & The Full Story Behind The FBI Raids On American Journalists
[09.03.2020] – VERITAS TIP LINE: “… Ashley Biden was staying in this room and they found her diary, all her clothes, luggage, pills… The diary is pretty… pic.twitter.com/U3yWYj4h85
— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) July 31, 2023
While PV made efforts to confirm the diary’s authenticity, as described not only in the above video but also by RedState’s Neil W. McCabe, who — it turns out — was in the room when Ashley (over the phone) identified the diary and invoked the Secret Service, the government had other ideas. In November 2021, the FBI raided the homes of PV journalists and seized their cell phones, laptops, and thumb drives in search of evidence related to the diary and its provenance, though ultimately, no arrests were made, and no charges were filed against any of the journalists. (The diary and other items had been returned to Ashley Biden via local law enforcement in Florida in November 2020.)
As I edited the referenced article and viewed the PV video Monday afternoon, I noticed something quite interesting: Ashley Biden’s lawyer — the one who responded to PV’s inquiries about the diary in October 2020 by stating: “This is insane; we should send to SDNY,” only to have SDNY open an investigation that very same day — was none other than Roberta Kaplan.
If that name rings a bell, it probably should. Roberta Kaplan is the attorney representing E. Jean Carroll in her defamation lawsuits against former President Donald Trump. I first became familiar with Kaplan the day after the jury rendered a verdict in Carroll’s favor, finding Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse in her second suit against him. (The first remains pending — it’s complicated.) As we reported, Kaplan and Carroll sat for an interview on CNN in which they acknowledged that they played a role in getting the New York law passed, which allowed Carroll to get around the statute of limitations and bring the rape and sexual abuse claims against Trump.
[T]he only reason they were able to bring a sexual assault claim was because of a new law that was passed in New York in 2022 called the Adult Survivors Act. That Act, signed by Democrat NY Gov. Kathy Hochul allowed for a “one-year lookback window for survivors of sexual assault” to sue their alleged abuser “regardless of when the abuse occurred.”
Now, I will be the first to acknowledge that it’s not extraordinarily odd for a high-profile litigator to have multiple high-profile clients. (Kaplan is, after all, a co-founder of “Time’s Up,” the advocacy organization founded in response to the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement.) But what an interesting twist to have the same attorney representing the woman suing the former president and the daughter of the current president, just as we gear up for perhaps another presidential face-off between the two.
I guess it really is a small world, after all!