2 ex-FBI officials charged with lying about involvement in investigation
into Hunter Biden's laptop
[October 24, 2026]
By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two former FBI officials were charged Friday with
lying to Congress about their involvement in investigating Hunter
Biden’s laptop in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, the
latest in a series of splashy and politically charged actions the
Justice Department has undertaken ahead of next month's midterm
contests.
Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, former leaders of a since-disbanded
task force set up to counter foreign election interference, appeared in
federal court in Washington, where their lawyers pressed for a speedy
hearing to contest allegations their clients lied to lawmakers by saying
that they did not participate in FBI investigations of Biden.
The prosecution, a rare Department of Justice criminal case against a
former employee, revisits a tangled and peculiar saga that roiled the
final weeks of the 2020 race. It also comes amid a broader,
backward-looking effort by FBI Director Kash Patel, who before taking
over the nation’s premier law enforcement agency was a harsh critic of
it, to scrutinize high-profile episodes from the bureau’s recent past
that for years have animated President Donald Trump’s conservative base.
Floris’ attorneys called her “a patriot” and said she has “served our
nation as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years.”
“Yet today, the DOJ has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of
politicians, not on the facts,” her attorneys said in a statement. “It’s
no coincidence the government is filing these nonsense charges now,
years later, on the eve of an election.”
Attorneys for Benavides accused the government of bringing “baseless
criminal charges against him in a transparently political complaint.”
“This is another sad day for the Department of Justice,” his lawyers
said in an emailed statement. “But now we are in court, and the truth
will come out: Brad Benavides is a true patriot who devoted his career
to protecting this country and its people. These charges are a
disgrace.”
A criminal complaint comes just before the midterms
The case was filed less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 elections via
criminal complaint, which means prosecutors have not yet presented the
allegations to a grand jury for an indictment. The Justice Department
has repeatedly struggled in high-profile cases to convince grand juries
in the nation’s capital to return indictments.
During the former FBI employees’ court appearance, both defense
attorneys and the judge noted the unusual move to charge the case
through a complaint, which is more often used by prosecutors when they
have an urgent need to take people into custody because, for example,
they present a danger or a risk of flight.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui remarked that it is “rare that we have
charges this old coming in this nature," and over the objections of
prosecutors who pushed for more time, set a preliminary hearing for next
Tuesday, citing what he said was the “sword of Damocles” hanging over
the defendants’ heads.
The laptop discovery created turmoil in 2020 election
The revelation of the laptop’s existence in October 2020 injected a
thorny storyline in the race between Trump, the Republican incumbent,
and Biden’s father, Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic challenger who went on
to win the race.
The laptop were publicized by the New York Post, which said it had
obtained from Trump ally Rudy Giuliani a hard drive of a computer
dropped off by Hunter Biden at a Wilmington, Delaware, repair shop about
a year earlier.
The criminal complaint aims to build on longstanding congressional
Republican complaints about the FBI’s handling of the laptop, including
allegations that the bureau was not forthcoming to the public that the
materials on it — including emails that showed discussions of the
younger Biden’s foreign business dealings — were authentic and not the
product of Russian disinformation.
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Hunter Biden steps into a vehicle as he leaves federal court, Sept.
5, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer, File)
The curious circumstances of the laptop’s discovery raised concerns
among Democrats and former intelligence officials about the
possibility of Russian involvement, particularly at a time when the
Trump administration’s own intelligence community had assessed that
Moscow that Russia was attempting to interfere in Trump’s favor in
the election and as Giuliani had traveled abroad looking for dirt on
the Bidens. Dozens of former U.S. intelligence officials signed a
letter saying that the laptop bore the "classic earmarks of an
Russian information operation.”
But Trump’s then-director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe,
said in a letter to Congress that there was no proof foreign actors
had anything to do with the laptop. The FBI under then-Director
Chris Wray subsequently endorsed that position.
Hunter Biden was charged with, and convicted of, gun and tax
offenses during his father’s administration. Joe Biden pardoned him
in his final weeks in office.
The case shines a light on an FBI task force on foreign
intelligence
The complaint alleges that in their capacity as leaders of the
Foreign Influence Task Force, Floris and Benavides were deeply
engaged in the investigations into Hunter Biden, and that Biden was
a recurring subject at FITF meetings.
Yet, the complaint says, both downplayed their firsthand knowledge
of the laptop or involvement in investigations during 2023 testimony
to lawmakers who were doing their own Biden investigation.
It accuses Benavides of making a false statement by saying he
learned through Wikipedia that the FBI was in possession of the
laptop, and says Floris falsely claimed to have had no knowledge of
Hunter Biden having been the subject of discussions at FITF.
“Lying to Congress by senior FBI officials strikes at the heart of
our system. No one is above the law,” Patel said.
The case brings renewed attention to the work of the task force,
which was established in the first Trump administration to police
influence campaigns staged by Russia and other nations aimed at
sowing discord, undermining democracy and spreading disinformation.
The task force became a magnet of congressional Republican criticism
in part because of the Hunter Biden investigation and was disbanded
in February 2025 by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The Justice Department has made other splashy moves
As FBI director, Patel has presided over widespread firings of
agents who were involved in investigations of Trump or who are
perceived as being against the Republican administration's agenda.
He has also focused attention on years-old investigations like the
Hunter Biden one that occurred before he became director and that
have been the subject of grievances and complaints by Trump allies.
The Justice Department historically looks to avoid public and overt
investigative acts in the direct lead-up to an election that involve
candidates or that risk influencing a political outcome. But
officials in the last two weeks have made a series of bold moves in
cases with political undertones, including a search of Democratic
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s house in an immigration fraud investigation and a
corruption indictment unsealed Thursday against powerful Democratic
Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas.
Omar and Lucas are both Trump critics. Omar, who's from Minnesota,
has called the search of her Washington home an “attempt to target
political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.” Lucas has
said she won't be intimidated or bullied by the federal government
in its case against her and “will not back down.”
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