Two former senior FBI officials were charged Friday with lying to Congress about their roles in the bureau’s investigations into Hunter Biden, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine
Two former senior FBI officials were charged Friday with lying to Congress about their roles in the bureau’s investigations into Hunter Biden, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced. Nikki Floris, 46, and Bradley Benavides, 56, surrendered on arrest warrants Friday morning.
Each was charged in a criminal complaint with one count of lying to Congress, CBS News reported.
Both held leadership posts on the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, a since-dissolved unit that led the bureau’s work to protect the 2020 election from foreign interference.
According to the Justice Department, both told the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 that the task force was not involved in the Hunter Biden investigations.
Floris said she took part in no discussions about Hunter Biden while at the task force.
Benavides testified that he learned the FBI had Hunter Biden’s laptop only from reading a Wikipedia article in 2023.
Prosecutors allege that documents, contemporaneous communications and witness accounts contradict that testimony.
In a post on X, Pirro wrote that evidence showed “their involvement in helping shape the public narrative about Hunter Biden’s laptop right before the election.” In the department’s announcement, she said it was time “to bring the hammer of justice down on them.”
Lawyers for both defendants reject the charges. Floris’ attorneys called her “a patriot” who served as an FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years, and said she was accused “on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts.” They added: “It’s no coincidence the government is filing these nonsense charges now, years later, on the eve of an election.”
Benavides’ attorneys, in a statement reported by the Associated Press, called the case “a transparently political complaint” and said, “These charges are a disgrace.”
At Friday’s court appearance, U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said it is “rare that we have charges this old coming in this nature,” the AP reported, and set a preliminary hearing for Tuesday over prosecutors’ objections. Because the case was filed by complaint, it has not yet gone to a grand jury.
The charges come less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The AP noted the case builds on longstanding Republican criticism of the FBI’s handling of the laptop, which surfaced in October 2020. Hunter Biden was later convicted of gun and tax offenses, and his father pardoned him before leaving office.
The Justice Department notes that charges in a complaint are allegations, and both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
