A federal judge on Monday dismissed the criminal case against two former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress about their work on the bureau’s investigation of Hunter Biden, finding that prosecutors had not established probable cause for the charges.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui dismissed the complaint against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides in Washington. The ruling followed a preliminary hearing at which an FBI agent testified that he worried the investigation could be viewed as political.
Complaint challenged at preliminary hearing
The case accused Floris and Benavides of making false statements during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in 2023. Prosecutors alleged that they misrepresented their work on the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and their roles in the bureau’s investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Rather than seeking an indictment from a federal grand jury, prosecutors brought the matter through a criminal complaint. The filing came as federal grand juries in Washington had rejected other politically sensitive cases involving people viewed by allies of President Donald Trump as opponents, including an attempted indictment of Cassidy Hutchinson.
- Faruqui found that prosecutors had not shown probable cause that Floris and Benavides lied to Congress.
- The allegations concerned testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in 2023.
- The case was filed as a criminal complaint instead of being presented to a federal grand jury.
At last week’s preliminary hearing, the FBI agent also acknowledged that a prosecutor involved in the case had recognized during a telephone call that the complaint contained flaws. That prosecutor, Carlton Davis, is a senior aide to Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
Davis was also involved in a separate, unsuccessful effort to indict six sitting members of Congress over a social media video that Trump had opposed, according to the account of the case. The prosecution of Floris and Benavides had drawn criticism from people close to the president.
Officials’ previous work
Both former FBI officials had worked on security matters related to the 2020 presidential election. Trump has repeatedly made the false claim that the election was stolen.
Faruqui’s decision ends the criminal complaint at the preliminary stage. The ruling addressed whether the government had shown sufficient probable cause to proceed against Floris and Benavides on the allegations concerning their congressional testimony.
