Two former senior FBI officials were charged Friday with making false statements to Congress about their roles in the investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop in the final weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
The two ex-senior FBI officials, Nikki Floris, 46, and Bradley Benavides, 56, made their first appearance in court Friday in Washington, DC before federal Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui.
They were each charged with one count of allegedly lying to Congress about their roles on the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, and 'about their roles in the FBI's Hunter Biden investigation,' according to US Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
They were charged by way of a criminal complaint - which means that federal prosecutors have not yet secured an indictment against either of them from a grand jury.
Floris is a former intelligence analyst who headed up the bureau's Washington Field Office, and Benavides formerly served as the deputy assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.
The decision by Pirro's office to announce charges against two senior ex-FBI officials 10 days before the midterm elections election is highly unusual, and lawyers for Floris and Benavides asked a federal magistrate judge Friday to schedule a preliminary hearing as soon as 'humanly possible' to determine whether the cases should move forward.
Floris and Benavides were charged with making false statements to the House Judiciary Committee about their roles on the task force and their involvement in the Hunter Biden investigation during separate testimonies in July 2023 and September 2023, respectively, according to a criminal complaint.
The charges mark the latest instance that the Justice Department has sidestepped longstanding internal guidance that cautions against taking public or overt investigative steps against public officials in the 90 days before an election.
Lawyers for the former agents questioned Friday why federal prosecutors did not move on the alleged false statements charges much earlier - noting that the warrants were served more than three years after their clients testified.
Faruqui agreed - describing the process by which the the charges were brought as 'strange,' and denying prosecutors' request to delay the preliminary hearing by more than two weeks.
All parties were ordered to return to court Tuesday morning for next steps.
The charges were praised by Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, who described the agents' alleged conduct as 'weaponization' in separate statements Friday.
'As we've said repeatedly: weaponization will never be tolerated at this FBI,' Patel said, adding that 'anyone who abuses their position of public trust will be held accountable.'
Pirro, the US attorney in DC, went further - describing prosecutors' actions as bringing the 'hammer of justice down' on the senior ex-FBI agents.
'Lying to Congress by anyone strikes at the heart of our democratic system but when senior FBI agents lie to Congress believing they are above the law, it's time to bring the hammer of justice down on them,' Pirro said Friday.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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