By Salma El-Sakka
Two former senior FBI counterintelligence officials charged with lying to Congress about investigations into Hunter Biden have accused the Justice Department of "serious abuse" of the criminal charging process. Nikki Floris, former deputy assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, and Bradley Benavides, another former senior counterintelligence official, were charged Friday with making false statements to Congress in 2023.
Magistrate Judge Criticizes Overnight Filing
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui sharply criticized Justice Department attorneys during a Tuesday hearing after prosecutors added an obstruction of a congressional proceeding charge in an overnight court filing. The judge said the filing was posted to the case docket without his signoff and noted the FBI agent who swore out the complaint did not include a signature. "I think they should have filed nothing," Faruqui said, calling the government's conduct unlike any case he had seen in the history of the D.C. district court.
Charges Stem from 2023 Congressional Testimony
The Justice Department alleges Floris and Benavides knowingly lied to Congress on separate occasions — Floris on July 19, 2023, and Benavides on September 28, 2023. Prosecutors say the pair made false statements to minimize or conceal the FBI Foreign Influence Task Force's engagement with Hunter Biden investigations and to impede the congressional probe. The charges relate to whether investigators sought to suppress or discredit material from a laptop belonging to former President Joe Biden's son ahead of the 2020 election.
Defense Attorneys Call Conduct Outrageous
Attorneys for Floris and Benavides said the government's last-minute filing was "not merely procedurally improper and substantively deficient" but represented "a serious abuse of the criminal charging process" and "a calculated effort to evade judicial scrutiny." They noted that in their combined decades of DOJ service, they had never seen such a filing, as criminal charges must typically be authorized by a grand jury, a judge, or the defendant.
Judge Questions Use of Criminal Complaint
Judge Faruqui expressed skepticism about the charges on Friday, saying the "facts appear to be old" and that "rare charges" of this age are never brought by criminal complaint rather than indictment, which would require grand jury approval. The judge continued Tuesday's hearing to determine whether prosecutors established probable cause in their initial complaint.
