Judge dismisses case against former FBI officials in Hunter Biden probe

A federal judge dismissed a criminal complaint Monday against two former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress about their knowledge of the Hunter Biden investigation, finding that prosecutors had failed to establish probable cause.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui dismissed the case against Nicole Floris and Bradley Benavides after an hour-long oral ruling, CBS News reported. The two had each been charged with one count of lying to Congress over testimony they gave to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023.

The complaint alleged that Floris and Benavides misrepresented their roles on the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and in investigations involving Hunter Biden, according to NBC News. CBS News reported that prosecutors accused them of falsely suggesting they were unaware of government investigations surrounding Biden, including an investigation into his laptop.

Faruqui said the government had not shown probable cause that the former officials lied. He also accused the Justice Department of pursuing a weaponized, political case and said its conduct “erodes public confidence in the Department of Justice,” CBS News reported.

The judge had previously criticized the department’s handling of the complaint. According to CBS News, prosecutors filed an unsigned, unsworn superseding complaint on the public court docket after midnight, before Faruqui had reviewed it to determine whether there was probable cause to believe a crime had been committed.

At a preliminary hearing last week, an FBI agent testified that he was concerned the investigation, directed by FBI Director Kash Patel, would be viewed as “political,” NBC News reported. The agent also acknowledged that a prosecutor on the case had said during a telephone call that the criminal complaint was flawed, according to NBC News.

NBC News identified that prosecutor as Carlton Davis, a top aide to Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Davis, a former Republican congressional staffer, was also involved in an unsuccessful attempt to indict six sitting members of Congress over a social media video that President Donald Trump disfavored, NBC News reported.

Prosecutors brought the case by criminal complaint rather than presenting it to a federal grand jury in Washington. NBC News reported that grand jurors there had been skeptical of politically tinged cases against perceived Trump opponents, most recently rejecting an attempted indictment of Cassidy Hutchinson.

Floris and Benavides had faced sharp criticism from close allies of Trump, NBC News reported. Both had worked on security issues for the 2020 presidential election, which Trump has falsely claimed was stolen.

Outside the courtroom after the dismissal, Floris and Benavides embraced and cried, CBS News reported. Former acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll was among the former FBI leaders with them.