Two former senior FBI officials were taken into custody on Friday after federal prosecutors charged them with lying to Congress about their involvement in investigations into Hunter Biden. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrests, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing scrutiny of the FBI's past handling of the case.
Nikki Floris, 46, and Bradley Benavides, 56, surrendered to authorities on arrest warrants early Friday morning. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, confirmed the surrenders in a post on the social media platform X. Pirro stated that the two allegedly provided false testimony regarding their roles in the FBI's Hunter Biden investigations. According to Pirro, one of the officials claimed they only learned about the probe from Wikipedia, despite evidence suggesting they helped shape the public narrative surrounding Hunter Biden's laptop shortly before the election.
FBI Director Kash Patel addressed the charges on X, linking them to an investigation into the FBI Foreign Influence Task Force, a unit that has since been dissolved. Patel noted that Floris and Benavides both worked on that task force. During their testimony, they stated that the unit was not involved in the Hunter Biden investigations. Patel wrote that documentary evidence, contemporaneous communications, and witness accounts contradict that testimony.
Legal representatives for Floris rejected the charges, calling them "nonsense" and accusing the Trump administration of filing them to gain political advantage ahead of the November 3 midterm election. A statement from Floris's counsel, which included attorneys Margaret Donovan, Chris Mattei, Mary Dohrmann and Kyle Freeny, described Floris as a patriot who served as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years.
The attorneys argued that the Department of Justice accused Floris falsely based on political assertions rather than facts. They emphasized that it was not a coincidence that the government filed these charges years later on the eve of an election. The statement claimed the government's motive was to push a false narrative for political points, describing the move as unjust and another sad day for the Department of Justice while expressing confidence in Floris's legal defense.