(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Two former FBI officials were charged on Friday with lying to Congress about their involvement in investigating Hunter Biden’s laptop in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election..
Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, former top leaders of a since-disbanded task force set up to counter foreign election interference, surrendered to authorities and made their first appearance in federal court in Washington, where their lawyers pressed for a speedy hearing at which they could contest the allegations against them.
The prosecution, a rare Department of Justice criminal case against a former employee, revisits a tangled and peculiar saga that roiled the final weeks of the 2020 race. At the time, the New York Post and others were reporting a series of scandalous stories about Hunter’s laptop, which revealed pictures of him smoking crack and partying with prostitutes, along with raising questions about him trading on his father’s name to secure foreign business deals.
In response to those reports, agents Floris and Benavides provided two separate “defensive briefings” to Congress in August 2020. In their capacity as leaders of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, they warned lawmakers that the Hunter Biden laptop information might be Russian disinformation.
The criminal complaint in this case was signed by an FBI veteran with over 20 years of experience, which is arguably a good sign that Kash didn't just have some lackey do this to placate the MAGA base.
On the other hand, the DOJ hasn't secured an indictment yet. https://t.co/nt5xgzql6Q pic.twitter.com/U2jdYLU7yI— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) October 23, 2026
The warnings about Hunter’s laptop being Russian disinformation proved to be unwarranted. Then-director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, said in a letter to Congress that there was no proof foreign actors had anything to do with Hunter Biden’s laptop. The FBI under then-Director Chris Wray subsequently backed up that assessment.
In any event, agents Floris and Benavides lied to Congress several years later about their role in the Hunter investigation—falsely telling lawmakers in 2023 that they had no knowledge about the Hunter Biden matter.
“For example, Floris told the Judiciary Committee that she was involved in no discussions about Hunter Biden while she was at the FITF. Benavides testified that he only learned of the FBI’s possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop from reading a Wikipedia article in 2023,” the DOJ said Friday in a press release. “Documentary evidence, contemporaneous communications, and witness accounts contradict their Congressional testimony.”
During the former FBI employees’ court appearance, both defense attorneys and the judge noted the unusual move to charge the case through a criminal complaint, which is more often used by prosecutors when they have an urgent need to take people into custody because, for example, they present a danger or a risk of flight.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui remarked that it is “rare that we have charges this old coming in this nature.” Faruqui set a preliminary hearing for next Tuesday over the objections of prosecutors, who pushed for more time given what the judge described as the “sword of Damocles” hanging over the defendants’ head.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
