A federal judge on Monday dismissed a criminal complaint loading two former top FBI counterintelligence officials lied to Congress about their roles in the bureau’s investigation of Hunter Biden, saying the politically charged case lacked evidence and appeared to be timed with the midterm elections.
In a scathing, hour-long oral ruling, Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui chastised the Justice Department and the FBI for what he called a “botched” case that had no probable cause that there was evidence that either Nikki Floris or Bradley Benavides had committed a crime.
“Without motive, without direct proof, I have nothing,” he said. “It’s not close. It’s nothing.”
“I am deeply troubled by what happened in this case,” Faruqui said. “What happened here can only be described as militarization.”
Although the complaint was dismissed, the Justice Department could still appeal Faruqui’s decision to the chief judge or seek an indictment before a grand jury.
A Justice Department spokesperson said it “disagrees with the magistrate’s ruling, which remarkably appears to suggest that high-ranking government officials are exempt from liability if they make materially false statements to Congress.”
“We are evaluating all options but cannot comment further on an ongoing criminal investigation,” the spokesperson said. “The Department’s actions will continue to be guided by facts, evidence and the law, not politics.”
CBS News has also reached out to the FBI and the DCUS Attorney’s Office for comment.
Floris was a former intelligence analyst in charge of the bureau’s Washington field office, while Benavides was the former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division. The two embraced outside the courtroom after the ruling while Floris cried tears of relief.
They were flanked by many former senior Justice Department and FBI officials who came to support them, including former acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll and Steve Jensen, the former head of the FBI’s Washington field office.
“This case should never have been brought,” Margaret Donovan, one of Floris’ attorneys, said in a statement to reporters outside the courthouse. “This was a botched complaint, spaghetti on the wall, Hunter Biden conspiracy fever dream. But facts always matter in a courtroom.”
The criminal case against Floris and Benavides has been highly unusual since it came to light earlier this month.
Prosecutors charged both men in a criminal complaint, a charging document that is typically used only in criminal cases that pose urgent threats to public safety or national security. Usually, prosecutors obtain a grand jury indictment before filing charges.
Last Tuesday, after midnight, the day before the court’s first day of hearings, prosecutors used an unsigned and unsworn superseding complaint to try to add new charges of obstructing Congress — a maneuver the trial judge said was inappropriate and unprecedented.
Faruqui struck the filing’s superseding complaint, claiming it lacked proper judicial review. But he allowed the hearing on the original complaint to proceed in a marathon evidentiary process with three days of testimony that culminated in Monday’s extraordinary ruling.
Throughout these three days, FBI Special Agent Bryan Witt, assigned to investigate the case, candidly admitted in court that the case had not been handled like others during his career.
He said it was opened at the request of FBI Director Kash Patel just a day after President Donald Trump gave a televised speech in July in which he accused intelligence officials of engaging in a cover-up to hide China’s interference in the matter. Election 2020 and ordered the Justice Department to continue the prosecution. Throughout the investigation, senior officials, including the FBI’s deputy directors and Patel himself, monitored progress.
Witt also acknowledged that he was concerned it could be seen as political and that others in his FBI field office in Kansas City were concerned it was a witch hunt.
Faruqui, himself a former federal prosecutor, also at one point cited aloud from the Justice Department’s manual, which states that prosecutors should not take overt investigative or prosecutorial steps intended to affect or influence the outcome of an election.
“Why did this have to be billed in October 2026?” he asked aloud, noting that there was no concern that the statute of limitations would soon expire.
“There were just no other events on the calendar except for the midterm elections,” he said. He added that he refuses to bury his head in the sand and pretend that timing isn’t an issue.
“I won’t lobotomize myself that way,” he added.
The case against Floris and Benavides rested on testimony they provided to the House Judiciary Committee in July and September 2023.
In particular, the investigation focused on an FBI counterintelligence operation led by the Foreign Influence Task Force known as “Round River,” which prosecutors said aimed to collect “derogatory information about, among others, Hunter Biden, to report that information as Russian disinformation.”
Floris served as FITF’s deputy deputy director from mid-2019 to mid-2022, while Benavides served as its section head from mid-2019 until the 2020 elections, according to the complaint.
In these roles, Floris and Benavides provided defensive briefings to Senators Charles Grassley and Ron Johnson in August 2020, ultimately leading the House Judiciary Committee to subpoena both men to testify approximately three years later.
During the three-day hearing in the case, issues related to the strength of the evidence and the lack of adequate investigation were revealed.
In order to show probable cause in a false statements case, prosecutors must show that the defendants made false statements, that they did so knowingly and willfully, and that those statements were material.
Faruqui reviewed each of the three elements of the offense Monday, concluding that the government failed to meet each threshold.
He compared the government’s complaint with previous cases of false statements where the elements of the offense were met, citing the cases against Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
“It’s clear to me that the rushed investigation had a purpose. It was a rush to charge – and that’s a problem,” he said.
During his testimony, Witt acknowledged, for example, that the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee had refused to allow FBI agents to interview members of Congress who were present during Floris and Benavides’ testimony — a crucial step necessary to establish the substance of the case.
The only person he was ultimately allowed to speak with was Steve Castor, the general counsel for the House Judiciary Republicans, who acknowledged that he had not witnessed Benavides’ testimony or reviewed the transcript. Witt did not speak with anyone on behalf of Democrats on the committee.
Career prosecutors later realized the potentially fatal error and attempted to raise it before the case was charged. In a recorded conversation provided to defense attorneys by the government, Carlton Davis, a political operative who is special counsel to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, could be heard admitting his mistake.
“I have a problem that I’m being hammered on here,” Davis was quoted as saying by Faruqui. “I realize this is our bullshit.”
Faruqui also noted that there were numerous errors in the original charging document compared to the replacement version that he later rejected — and even Witt himself made inaccurate statements on the stand — misstatements that he noted were not criminal because he did not believe Witt intended to lie.
He openly questioned why the government did not pressure test the case before proceeding with the indictment, and likened the three-day hearing to the equivalent of a review of an indictment.
Instead of resolving problems and errors privately within the Justice Department, he said, these issues were resolved “in open court, before the eyes of the whole world.”
He also lamented the collateral consequences this case could have, pointing out that it was practically a “marketing material” intended to dissuade people from joining the ranks of the FBI, and that it would have a “chilling effect” on Congress’s ability to take testimony from people. In the future, he said, Congress can expect more people to plead the Fifth Amendment and be deterred from appearing voluntarily, as Floris and Benavides did.
Above all, he predicted the affair would erode trust in the Justice Department and said he also felt sorry not only for the defendants, but also for the career prosecutors and agents who were forced to participate in it.
“This case is closed,” he said. “I’m sorry you were dragged into this process.”
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