Justice Department Charges Two Former FBI Officials With Lying to Congress on Hunter Biden Laptop
Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides each face one count. Floris's lawyers say the charges came "on the eve of an election" and are no coincidence.
The Justice Department has charged two former FBI officials with lying to Congress about the bureau's handling of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced Friday. Pirro disclosed the charges in a post on X.
The defendants are Nikki Floris, 46, and Bradley Benavides, 56. Each was charged in a criminal complaint on Friday with one count of lying to Congress.
The charges concern their roles on the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force during the 2020 election, specifically the investigations involving Hunter Biden. Pirro alleged that one of the defendants claimed to have learned of the probe from Wikipedia. She argued the evidence shows "their involvement in helping shape the public narrative about Hunter Biden's laptop right before the election."
The complaints do not rest on the underlying laptop story itself but on what the two officials are accused of telling lawmakers about it. Charges of lying to Congress hinge on whether statements made to a congressional committee were knowingly false, and complaints are the first step in a case that must still be presented to a grand jury or otherwise advanced before trial.
Floris's lawyers rejected the accusation. They said she was falsely accused and questioned the timing of the charges, calling her "a patriot" who served nearly 20 years as an FBI intelligence officer. They said the case was filed "on the eve of an election," which they described as no coincidence. Early voting is under way in the midterms, and election day is Nov. 3.
The laptop has been a flashpoint in American politics since a New York Post story about its contents appeared in October 2020, shortly before that year's presidential election. Republicans have for years accused the FBI and other agencies of helping to suppress the story, and the bureau's Foreign Influence Task Force has been a repeated target of congressional investigators.
Pirro's account of the case leans on the claim that the two men helped steer how the laptop was discussed in public in the final stretch before the 2020 vote. Floris's legal team stressed her nearly two decades as an FBI intelligence officer and rejected the idea that she misled lawmakers.
CBS News described the story as developing. No court dates were reported in the initial coverage, and Benavides had not publicly responded in the material available Friday.
The charges add to a list of prosecutions of figures tied to earlier investigations of President Donald Trump and his allies, a pattern critics describe as retribution and supporters describe as accountability. Whether the complaints survive scrutiny is likely to turn on the exact testimony in question.
