Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui speaks before a debate at the Prettyman federal courthouse in Washington, DC, November 2024.
Craig Hudson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
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Craig Hudson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
A federal judge on Monday dismissed the Justice Department’s criminal case against two former FBI officials charged in connection with the bureau’s investigations into former President Joe Biden’s son.
Bradley Benavides and Nikki Floris were accused about two weeks ago of lying to Congress in 2023 about their knowledge of the FBI’s investigations into Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. This is one of several politically charged actions taken by the Justice Department under President Trump in the run-up to Tuesday’s midterm elections.
At a hearing in federal court in Washington, D.C., U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui blasted the government’s investigation into Floris and Benavides, calling it rushed and riddled with errors.
“I am deeply troubled by what happened here,” Faruqui said in a scathing court ruling. “What happened here cannot be described as anything other than militarization.”
The court’s decision came after a several-day preliminary hearing last week to determine whether there was probable cause to accuse Floris and Benavides of lying to Congress. It featured testimony from one of the FBI agents who investigated the case.
In a statement, a Justice Department spokesperson said the department “disagrees with the magistrate’s decision, 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.”
For an hour, Faruqui laid out the basis of his decision Monday to a packed courtroom that included many former top FBI officials.
The judge noted that the investigation into Floris and Benavides was opened at the order of FBI Director Kash Patel the day after President Trump gave a prime-time speech on national television in mid-July. In that speech, Trump reiterated his false claims about fraud in the 2020 election and urged the FBI to investigate.
Faruqui noted that the alleged false statements were made to Congress in 2023, but the Justice Department waited three years to pursue the case. Prosecutors then filed the charges about two weeks before the midterm elections, despite a Justice Department policy prohibiting planning any action to influence an election.
This is not the department’s only unusual move. The judge also noted that the charges were filed as part of a criminal complaint, a document usually used when there is a need for urgency such as imminent danger, a statute of limitations or flight risk, which did not exist in this case.
The only event looming here, he said, was the midterm elections.
“I’m not going to bury my head in the sand and pretend I don’t know how to read a calendar,” Faruqui said. “I won’t lobotomize myself that way.”
He also said prosecutors don’t appear to want to take this case to a grand jury, perhaps given the Justice Department’s poor recent record with grand juries in Washington, DC.
Repeatedly during the Trump administration, grand juries in the nation’s capital have declined to return indictments in high-profile, politically charged cases.
Even though Faruqui dismissed the case, he said nothing stops prosecutors from going before a grand jury and trying to obtain an indictment. Prosecutors could also appeal his decision to the district’s chief judge.
After the hearing, a group of former FBI officials greeted Floris and Benavides outside the courtroom. Floris, with tears in his eyes, embraced several of his former colleagues before sharing a hug with Benavides.
“This case should never have been brought. The government had no case,” said Margaret Donovan, one of Floris’ attorneys. “As the judge just laid out, this was a rushed complaint, spaghetti on the wall, Hunter Biden’s conspiracy dream. But facts always matter in a courtroom. The truth always matters in a courtroom. And that’s what we say prevailed today.”
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