A federal judge dismissed a criminal complaint Monday against a pair of former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress during the FBI investigation of Hunter Biden.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui of Washington, D.C., found the government failed to show probable cause that Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides had lied to lawmakers about what they knew about the investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop. Data from the abandoned computer later led to successful criminal charges against Biden, former President Joe Biden’s son.
The case was brought by criminal complaint rather than presented to a federal grand jury in Washington, where jurors have been skeptical of politically tinged cases against purported Trump enemies, most recently rejecting the attempt to indict Cassidy Hutchinson.
The complaint alleged that the duo lied about their roles on the Foreign Influence Task Force and “about their roles in the FBI’s Hunter Biden investigations” when they were testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in 2023.
The case was dismissed after an FBI agent testified at a preliminary hearing last week that he was concerned that the investigation, which FBI Director Kash Patel directed, would be viewed as “political.” He also acknowledged that a prosecutor on the case had acknowledged the criminal complaint was flawed in a telephone call last week.
That prosecutor, Carlton Davis — a top aide to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro — is a former Republican Hill staffer who was also involved in the failed indictment of six sitting members of Congress over a social media video that President Donald Trump disfavored.
The case theoretically could still move forward if the Justice Department were able to convince federal grand jurors of probable cause, but that outcome seems unlikely given Faruqui’s finding that the complaint did not meet that legal standard.
In a statement, the Justice Department said it “disagrees with the Magistrate’s decision, which remarkably appears to suggest that high-ranking government officials are immune from accountability for making materially false statements to Congress.”
“We are evaluating all options but cannot comment further on an ongoing criminal investigation. The Department’s actions will continue to be guided by the facts, the evidence, and the law — not politics,” the statement said.
Faruqui previously criticized the government for trying to bring additional charges against the ex-agents by filing a new unsigned complaint on the court docket without a judge’s permission.
Floris and Benavides had been targets of criticism from close allies of Trump. Both worked on security issues for the 2020 presidential election, which Trump has falsely claimed was stolen.
In a statement, Floris’ attorneys said that while “Nikki should never have had to endure this disgraceful public attack, we hope the courts continue to be a refuge for all citizens unlawfully targeted by the Trump administration.”
They said the charges against their client had been “nothing more than a politically-motivated smear campaign aimed at scoring political points before the midterm elections.”
Attorneys for Benavides praised Faruqui’s decision and called the accusations against their client “political theater.”
“Bradley Benavides is a patriot,” the statement said. “He is a public servant. And he is innocent. We are grateful that Judge Faruqui carefully weighed the woefully inadequate evidence against the law, and found the government could not meet the extremely low burden of probable cause.”
“We can only hope the government does not now go to the grand jury and try to charge this case behind closed doors, where they can shape the narrative and we are unable to present our side of the story,” it said.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
