Two former FBI officials, Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, were charged on Friday with allegedly lying to Congress about their roles in the FBI’s Hunter Biden investigations, weeks before the midterm elections. The Hunter Biden FBI charges were brought in Washington, D.C., according to court proceedings reported by CBS News US and NBC News.
Floris and Benavides each appeared in court on Friday and were presented with a criminal complaint charging each with one count of lying to Congress, according to CBS News US. The complaint alleges that Floris made false statements to Congress on July 19, 2023, and that Benavides allegedly made similar statements that September. The statements concerned their awareness of their involvement in the investigations, CBS News US reported.
The complaint alleges the two made the statements to conceal the Foreign Influence Task Force’s engagement with the Hunter Biden investigations and to impede the congressional investigation, according to CBS News US. NBC News reported that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a social media post that the two surrendered Friday morning and lied about their roles in the task force and the investigations.
Floris’s attorneys said she served the nation as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years. They accused the Justice Department of charging her on the say-so of politicians, not the facts, according to NBC News. Benavides’s attorney, Ronald Safer, called the charges baseless and political and said his client protected the public for 20 years, NBC News reported.
The case stems from testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023, more than three years ago. It was unsealed about two weeks before the November 3 midterm election, according to Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera also reported that the Foreign Influence Task Force was launched during Trump’s first term, was heavily targeted by Republicans under Biden, and was disbanded when Trump took office again in January 2025.
Hunter Biden was convicted on gun charges and pleaded guilty to tax offenses. His father pardoned him shortly before leaving office, and he was never charged over his overseas business dealings, according to the same reporting.
The sources disagree on Floris’s position. CBS News US says she served as deputy assistant director of the Foreign Influence Task Force from mid-2019 through mid-2022 and was in charge at the Washington Field Office. NBC News describes her as a former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division.
Neither defendant has been indicted by a grand jury, and the case rests on a criminal complaint. The main gaps are that the outlets reviewed were limited to full CBS News US and NBC News articles and an Al Jazeera article, so the complaint itself could not be independently reviewed. Neither the Justice Department nor the defendants have responded to the allegations beyond their attorneys’ statements.
Floris and Benavides are due back in court at 11 a.m. Tuesday for a preliminary hearing. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui called the manner of the charging ‘strange’, rejected prosecutors’ request to delay the hearing, and ordered the parties to return at that time, according to CBS News US.
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This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.