A federal judge in Washington on Monday dismissed the criminal complaint against two former FBI officials who were accused of lying to Congress about what they knew of the bureau’s investigations involving Hunter Biden, the Associated Press reported.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia threw out the complaint against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, former officials with the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force. The ruling came after a dramatic hearing in which the judge scolded prosecutors for their unorthodox handling of the case.
What the two were accused of
The Justice Department charged Floris and Benavides with falsely downplaying their knowledge of a laptop the department says belonged to Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden. The charges centered on testimony the two gave the House Judiciary Committee in 2023.
Floris served as deputy assistant director of the Foreign Influence Task Force from mid-2019 through mid-2022, and Benavides was its section chief from mid-2019 through the 2020 election, according to CBS News. Prosecutors alleged they made false statements to minimize the task force’s involvement with the Hunter Biden investigations.
A judge who was not impressed
Before Monday’s ruling, Faruqui had already struck from the record a superseding complaint that prosecutors filed in the middle of the night on the public court docket. That filing, which tried to add an obstruction charge, was unsigned and unsworn and had never gone through a judge’s probable-cause review.
“We have never had complaints filed that are unsigned,” Faruqui said, according to CBS News. “I am unaware of that ever happening before in this court.”
ABC News reported that the judge told prosecutors the government’s “inappropriate” actions were “throwing enormous amounts of gasoline onto this fire,” adding that “everything you’re doing just is making me more and more concerned that there’s something to that,” a reference to the defense’s argument that the case was politically motivated.
The agent’s testimony
During the hearing, the FBI agent assigned to the case testified that he had been concerned the investigation would be seen as “political,” AP reported. Under cross-examination, the agent, Bryan Witt, said the genesis of the case was a July speech by President Donald Trump centered on unverified claims of fraud in past elections, and that FBI Director Kash Patel personally assigned the investigation of a list of former agents, including Floris and Benavides, to the bureau’s Kansas City field office, according to ABC News.
What happens next
The dismissal is not necessarily the end of the matter. The Justice Department may still have an opportunity to pursue a grand jury indictment against the two former officials, AP reported.
The ruling lands one day before Tuesday’s midterm elections and adds to a string of courtroom setbacks for the Justice Department in recent weeks.