2 former FBI officials accused of lying about their involvement in Hunter Biden laptop investigation

WASHINGTON- Two former FBI officials were charged Friday with lying to Congress about their involvement in the investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, the latest in a series of dramatic and politically charged actions the Justice Department has taken ahead of next month’s midterm elections.

Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, former leaders of a since-disbanded task force created to counter foreign election interference, surrendered to authorities and made their first appearance in federal court in Washington, where their lawyers insisted on a quick hearing in which they could challenge the allegations against them.

The indictment, a rare Justice Department criminal case against a former employee, revisits a tangled and peculiar saga that roiled the final weeks of the 2020 race. It is also part of a broader, retrospective effort by FBI Director Kash Patel, who before taking the helm of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency had been a harsh critic of it, to examine high-profile episodes from the bureau’s recent past that animated during President Trump’s conservative base for years.

Floris’ lawyers called her a “patriot” and said she “served our nation as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years.”

“Yet today the DOJ wrongly charged her with a crime based on what politicians said, not on the facts,” her lawyers said in a statement. “It is no coincidence that the government is making these absurd accusations today, years later, on the eve of an election.”

Criminal complaint arrives just before midterms

The case was filed 10 days before the Nov. 3 election through a criminal complaint, meaning prosecutors have not yet presented the case to a grand jury for an indictment. The Justice Department has repeatedly struggled in high-profile cases to convince grand juries in the nation’s capital to return indictments.

During the former FBI employees’ court appearance, defense attorneys and the judge noted the unusual tendency to charge the case through a criminal complaint, which is more often used by prosecutors when they have an urgent need to arrest people because, for example, they pose a danger or flight risk.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui noted that it is “rare for charges this old and of this nature to be brought forward.” Faruqui set a preliminary hearing for Tuesday over the objections of prosecutors, who asked for more time given what the judge described as the “sword of Damocles” hanging over the defendants’ heads.

Laptop discovery created turmoil in 2020 election

The revelation of the laptop’s existence in October 2020 injected a thorny storyline into the race between Trump, the Republican incumbent, and Biden’s father, Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic challenger, who won the race.

The suit seeks to build on long-standing Republican complaints to Congress about the FBI’s handling of the laptop, including allegations that the bureau failed to tell the public its conclusion that the documents it contained — including emails showing discussions of the younger Biden’s foreign business dealings — were authentic and not the product of Russian disinformation.

The contents of the laptop were made public by the New York Post, which said it obtained from Trump ally Rudolph W. Giuliani the hard drive of a computer dropped by Hunter Biden at a Wilmington, Del., repair shop about a year earlier.

The curious circumstances of the laptop’s discovery have raised concerns among Democrats and former intelligence officials about the possibility of Russian disinformation, particularly at a time when the Trump administration’s own intelligence community believed Russia was trying to interfere on Trump’s behalf in the election and Giuliani had traveled abroad seeking information on the Bidens. Dozens of former US intelligence officials signed a letter saying the laptop bore the hallmarks of an “information campaign”.

But John Ratcliffe, Trump’s then-director of national intelligence, said in a letter to Congress that there was no evidence that foreign actors had anything to do with Hunter Biden’s laptop. The FBI, led by then-Director Chris Wray, later confirmed this assessment.

Hunter Biden was later charged and convicted of gun and tax offenses during his father’s administration. President Biden pardoned him during his final weeks in office.

Case highlights FBI foreign intelligence task force

The complaint alleges that in their capacity as leaders of the Foreign Influence Task Force, Floris and Benavides participated in the Hunter Biden investigations and that Biden was a recurring topic at FITF meetings. Yet, according to the complaint, both downplayed their direct knowledge of the laptop or their involvement in the investigations during congressional testimony in 2023. It accuses Benavides of making a false statement when telling lawmakers that he learned through Wikipedia that the FBI was in possession of the laptop.

“The lying to Congress by senior FBI officials strikes at the heart of our system. No one is above the law,” Patel said.

The case draws renewed attention to the work of the task force, which was created during the first Trump administration to monitor influence campaigns organized by Russia and other countries aimed at sowing discord, undermining democracy and spreading disinformation. The task force became a magnet for Republican criticism of Congress during the Biden investigation and was disbanded in February 2025 by Atty. General Pam Bondi in one of her first acts on the job.

The Justice Department has taken other dramatic steps

As FBI director, Patel presided over numerous firings of agents involved in investigations into Trump or perceived to be contrary to the Republican administration’s agenda.

He also drew attention to years-old investigations, like that of Hunter Biden, which took place before he became director and which has been the subject of grievances and complaints from Trump’s allies.

The Department of Justice has historically sought to avoid public and overt investigative acts in the period directly preceding an election that implicate candidates or risk influencing the outcome. But over the past two weeks, officials have taken a series of bold steps in politically charged cases, including a search of the home of Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar as part of an immigration fraud investigation and a corruption indictment unsealed Thursday against powerful Virginia Democratic state Sen. L. Louise Lucas.

Both Omar and Lucas are Trump critics. Omar called the search of his Washington home “an attempt to target political enemies and militarize federal law enforcement.” Lucas said she would not be bullied or intimidated by the federal government in the case against her and would “not back down.”

Tucker and Richer write for the Associated Press.