A federal magistrate judge in Washington on Monday threw out the Justice Department's criminal complaint against two former senior FBI counterintelligence officials accused of lying to Congress about the Hunter Biden investigation. He found no probable cause and called the prosecution weaponization timed to the midterm elections.
What has transpired here can't be described as anything other than weaponization.
Zia Faruqui, U.S. magistrate judge
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui ruled from the bench for about an hour, concluding that the government had failed to show that Nikki Floris or Bradley Benavides committed a crime. He found that prosecutors fell short on each element of a false statements charge: that the statements were false, that they were made knowingly and willfully, and that they were material.
The ruling came the day before Tuesday's midterms. Faruqui noted that the testimony at issue dated to 2023 and that no statute of limitations deadline was near, leaving the elections as the only event on the calendar. He also read aloud from the Justice Department Manual, which bars prosecutors from taking steps intended to influence an election's outcome.
The Justice Department said it disagreed with the decision, arguing that it appears to suggest high-ranking officials are immune from accountability for false statements to Congress. A spokesperson said the department was evaluating all options.
Prosecutors can still appeal to the district's chief judge or seek a grand jury indictment. They had charged the pair by criminal complaint instead, skipping a Washington grand jury at a time when grand juries there have refused to indict in several politically charged cases, most recently rejecting an attempted indictment of Cassidy Hutchinson.
How the case was built
FBI Special Agent Bryan Witt, who helped investigate, testified that the case was opened at the behest of FBI Director Kash Patel one day after President Donald Trump gave a televised speech in July. In that speech, Trump accused intelligence officials of a coverup and ordered the Justice Department to pursue prosecutions.
Witt told the court that senior officials, including Patel, checked on the investigation's progress. He acknowledged fearing it would be seen as political, and he said colleagues in his Kansas City field office worried it was a witch hunt.
The evidence on materiality had a major gap. Witt said the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee refused to let agents interview staffers who were present for the testimony. The only person he spoke with was Steve Castor, the committee Republicans' general counsel, who had not witnessed Benavides' testimony or reviewed the transcript.
Career prosecutors spotted the problem before charges were filed. In a taped conversation turned over to the defense, Carlton Davis, a special counsel to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and a former Republican Hill staffer, could be heard admitting the mistake.
It's clear to me the rushed investigation had a goal. It was a rush to charge — and that is a problem,
Zia Faruqui, U.S. magistrate judge
Prosecutors also filed an unsigned, unsworn superseding complaint after midnight on the eve of last week's hearing in an effort to add obstruction charges. Faruqui struck it from the record, calling the maneuver improper and unheard of.
The officials and the testimony
The charges stemmed from testimony the two gave the House Judiciary Committee in July and September 2023 about their roles on the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force. Prosecutors focused on an operation called Round River, which they said flagged derogatory informant reporting on Hunter Biden as Russian disinformation.
Floris was deputy assistant director of the task force from mid-2019 through mid-2022, and Benavides served as its section chief through the 2020 election. In August 2020, they gave defensive briefings to Sens. Charles Grassley and Ron Johnson.
Faruqui warned that the case would chill Congress' ability to take testimony, push more witnesses to plead the Fifth Amendment, and discourage people from joining the FBI. He apologized to the defendants for being dragged through the process.
Floris cried after the ruling and embraced Benavides outside the courtroom, where former Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll was among the former officials who came to support them. Her lawyers called the complaint a Hunter Biden conspiracy fever dream. Benavides' lawyers called the case political theater and urged the government not to take it to a grand jury.
