Ashley Biden’s diary — kept as she recovered from addiction — was passed around at a Donald Trump fundraiser in September 2020 at the home of a Trump donor who ultimately helped steer it to Project Veritas, the New York Times reports.

New information about the case suggests that the effort to make the diary public reached deeper into Trump’s circle than previously known.

New York Times: “Mr. Prince’s role in the effort, which has not been previously disclosed, sheds further light on how a group of ultraconservative Republicans employed spycraft to try to manipulate the American political landscape. Mr. Prince — a former C.I.A. contractor who is best known as the founder of the private military firm Blackwater and whose sister, Betsy DeVos, was Mr. Trump’s education secretary — has drawn scrutiny over the years for Blackwater’s record of violence around the world and his subsequent ventures training and arming foreign forces.”

“His willingness to support Mr. Seddon’s operation is fresh evidence of his engagement in political espionage projects at home during a period when he was an informal adviser to Trump administration officials.”

FBI agents and the House panel investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol have both learned of an alleged plan by allies of retired army Lt Gen Michael Flynn to gather “intelligence” on top Republicans to “move” them to back election audits in key states Trump lost, The Guardian reports.

New York Times: “In the final two months of the 2020 campaign, President Donald J. Trump, his grip on power slipping because of his handling of the pandemic, desperately tried to change the narrative by attacking the business dealings of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son Hunter, invoking his name publicly over 100 times.”

“At the same time, another effort was underway in secret to try to expose the contents of a diary kept the previous year by Mr. Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden, as she underwent treatment for addiction.”

“A few weeks ago, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) falsely claimed that the centerpiece of President Biden’s domestic agenda, a $1.75 trillion bill to battle climate change and extend the nation’s social safety net, would include Medicare for all,” the New York Times reports.

“It doesn’t, and never has. But few noticed Mr. Crenshaw’s lie because he didn’t say it on Facebook, or on Fox News. Instead, he sent the false message directly to the inboxes of his constituents and supporters in a fund-raising email.”

“Lawmakers’ statements on social media and cable news are now routinely fact-checked and scrutinized. But email — one of the most powerful communication tools available to politicians, reaching up to hundreds of thousands of people — teems with unfounded claims and largely escapes notice.”

Republican operatives have deployed a massive network of fake local news sites to weaponize “critical race theory” in political campaigns, Popular Information reports.

“Russian State media pundits and personalities are claiming that the experienced CNBC journalist, who interviewed President Putin last week, was part of an American ‘special operation’ designed to sway and tantalize the Russian leader,” the Daily Beast reports.

“Putin started the pile-on himself by implying that Hadley Gamble was too beautiful to understand his remarks during an on-stage interview at a Russian Energy Week panel in Moscow.”

“Two conservative hoaxers face a record $5.1 million fine for allegedly making illegal robocalls to wireless phones without the owners’ consent in the 2020 election,” the Associated Press reports.

“The proposed fine for Jacob Wohl, Jack Burkman and Burkman’s lobbying firm would be the largest ever for violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.”

A sham candidate for the Florida Legislature pleaded guilty Tuesday to being part of a vote siphoning scheme in last year’s election and will testify against a former state senator Frank Artiles (R) who prosecutors say ran it, the Associated Press reports.

A newly obtained transcript shows that Rudy Giuliani told federal agents it was okay to “throw a fake” during a political campaign, to which his then-law partner, Marc Mukasey, added, “there’s no obligation to tell the truth,” the Washington Post reports.

New York Times: “Back-alley firms meddle in elections and promote falsehoods on behalf of clients who can claim deniability, escalating our era of unreality.”

“Matte Nox is the assumed name and online persona of Matthew Tunstall, a 34-year-old from Texas who over the past three years has raised millions of dollars operating two political action committees that impersonated the Trump campaign,” CNN reports.

“Tunstall’s two PACs, Support American Leaders and Campaign to Support the President, have together raised a total of $3.4 million to date… While much of that money pays for the billions of robocalls the two groups make, almost all of which feature recorded soundbites of public statements from Trump, a CNN KFile analysis shows that the PACs paid Tunstall at least $738,000 of that money to date.”

Politico: “A little-known GOP candidate in one of Florida’s most competitive congressional seats was secretly recorded threatening to send ‘a Russian and Ukrainian hit squad’ to a fellow Republican opponent to make her ‘disappear.’”