Former FBI officials charged with lying to Congress face preliminary hearing Tuesday

By Ezra Whitfield

WASHINGTON — Two former senior FBI officials charged with lying to Congress about the bureau’s Hunter Biden investigations are due back in federal court Tuesday at 11 a.m., when a magistrate judge is scheduled to hold a preliminary hearing on whether prosecutors have probable cause to proceed.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced Friday that Nikki Cole Floris, 46, of Alexandria, Virginia, and Bradley Benavides, 56, of Aiken, South Carolina, surrendered on arrest warrants after a criminal complaint charged each with one count of making false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2). The court docket lists Floris as Nicole Floris.

“Lying to Congress by anyone strikes at the heart of our democratic system,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said in the release. Attorney General Todd Blanche said that “public servants, including federal law enforcement officials, cannot lie to Congress and get away with it.” FBI Director Kash Patel said “weaponization will never be tolerated at this FBI.”

Both defendants’ lawyers have called the charges political. Floris’s attorneys said in a statement reported by NBC News that the Justice Department “has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts,” and that “it’s no coincidence the government is filing these nonsense charges now, years later, on the eve of an election.” Ronald S. Safer, a lawyer for Benavides, called the complaint “transparently political,” according to NBC.

What the government alleges

According to the release, the charges stem from an ongoing investigation into the FBI’s since-dissolved Foreign Influence Task Force, which led the bureau’s efforts to protect the 2020 election from foreign malign influence. Floris led the task force as a deputy assistant director from mid-2019 through mid-2022; Benavides was its section chief from mid-2019 through the 2020 election.

Both were interviewed by the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 and warned that lying to Congress is a crime, the release says. Prosecutors say Floris told the committee she was involved in no discussions about Hunter Biden while at the task force, and that Benavides testified he learned of the FBI’s possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop from a Wikipedia article in 2023. An affidavit supporting the complaint says “documentary evidence, contemporaneous communications, and witness accounts contradict their Congressional testimony,” according to the release.

The government’s redacted statement of facts says the evidence “establishes probable cause to believe that Floris and Benavides made these statements for the purpose of concealing” the task force’s engagement with the Hunter Biden investigations, CBS News reported.

As the release notes, charges in a complaint are merely allegations, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Why the hearing is Tuesday

The case, United States v. Floris, No. 1:26-mj-00185, was filed under seal Oct. 20 and unsealed Oct. 23, the docket shows. Magistrate Judge Matthew J. Sharbaugh signed the sealing order.

At Friday’s initial appearance, Benavides’s lawyers asked for a preliminary hearing “as soon as humanly possible,” CBS reported. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui rejected a government request to delay the hearing by two weeks or more and ordered the parties back at 11 a.m. Tuesday, according to CBS, which reported that Faruqui called the manner of charging “strange” and said, “This is the Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.”

As of Friday, neither defendant had been indicted by a grand jury, NBC reported. Under Rule 5.1 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, a preliminary hearing is not required if a defendant is indicted before it takes place.

The Inquisitor is seeking comment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI, the House Judiciary Committee and lawyers for both defendants.