Ex-FBI Agents Accuse DOJ of 'Serious Abuse' in Hunter Biden Probe Case

Attorneys for a former FBI agent charged with lying to Congress about the probe into Hunter Biden's laptop have called the charges a "serious abuse of the criminal charging process." The Justice Department on Friday charged two former senior FBI officials, Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, with making false statements to Congress, stemming from an investigation into whether officials sought to suppress or discredit the veracity of material on the laptop.

Floris, the former deputy assistant director for the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, and Benavides, another former senior counterintelligence official, were charged via a criminal complaint in federal district court in Washington, D.C. The Department of Justice (DOJ) later added an obstruction of a congressional proceeding charge against them prior to a hearing on the matter Tuesday.

Both former agents deny all charges. "The government's last-ditch filing before the pre-scheduled preliminary hearing in this case is not merely procedurally improper and substantively deficient," Floris' attorneys stated. "It represents a serious abuse of the criminal charging process, a troubling disregard for the judicial safeguards governing the initiation of criminal proceedings, and a calculated effort to evade judicial scrutiny and shield the government's allegations from adversarial testing at the scheduled preliminary hearing."

According to court documents filed Tuesday, the charges are based on witness accounts and other documents detailing alleged conduct dating back to 2020. The DOJ alleges that Floris and Benavides knowingly lied to Congress on two separate occasions: July 19, 2023, for Floris, and September 28, 2023, for Benavides.

The affidavit states that congressional and FBI witnesses, along with FBI documents, indicate that the pair were aware of the Hunter Biden investigation. "What is going on at the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office?" Floris' attorneys questioned in a statement responding to the filing. "In the middle of the night, the government filed an unsigned and unsworn complaint attempting to fix the issues with their original charge against Ms. Floris and adding a new charge just as meritless as the first one."

"In our combined decades of DOJ service, we have never seen or even heard of something like this being filed," the statement continued. "That's because the public lodging of criminal charges must be authorized by the grand jury, a judge, or the defendant herself. We have asked to address this outrageous government conduct against a decorated public servant at today's court hearing."

U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui expressed skepticism about the charges during Friday's proceedings, noting that the "facts appear to be old" and that "questions need to be answered." The judge scheduled a hearing for Tuesday to determine if the government had established probable cause for its complaint. Faruqui also indicated that the judge who initially signed off on the complaint required additional time to assess probable cause, remarking that "rare charges" that are "this old" are typically not brought via complaint.

It remains unclear why prosecutors opted to charge the pair through a criminal complaint rather than an indictment, which would have required grand jury approval. Ron Safer, an attorney for Benavides, stated that the government should be able to present evidence against the two "dedicated public servants" on Tuesday.