WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday dismissed a criminal case accusing two former senior FBI officials of lying about their involvement in an investigation of former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, according to Reuters.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui threw out the case at an unusually early stage, finding that prosecutors had not shown sufficient evidence that the two officials, Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, had knowingly made false statements. Both are former high-ranking FBI counterintelligence officials who helped supervise the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force, which worked to limit attempts by countries such as Russia and China to sway U.S. elections.
"What has transpired here cannot be described as anything other than weaponization" of federal law enforcement, Judge Faruqui said during the hearing, according to Reuters. He said the Justice Department had carried out a rushed investigation that made "critical mistakes" and departed from normal procedures, and he questioned why prosecutors had brought the case through a criminal complaint instead of seeking a grand jury indictment.
Floris and Benavides were charged on October 23, when they surrendered on arrest warrants, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office announcement at the time. Each was charged with one count of making false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch. Prosecutors accused them of lying during 2023 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee about their knowledge of probes involving Hunter Biden and material from a laptop that surfaced ahead of the 2020 election.
During the hearings, an FBI agent who worked on the case testified that the investigation into the two officials began after a speech by President Trump in July calling for investigations into alleged misconduct surrounding the 2020 election, according to reporting on the proceedings. The case was part of a wider effort by the president and his allies to examine how federal officials handled information about the Biden family before that election.
A Justice Department spokesperson said the department disagrees with the ruling and is "evaluating all options" to respond, according to Reuters. The dismissal does not end the matter for certain: prosecutors can try to revive the case by securing an indictment, but that would need the approval of a grand jury, which applies a different process from the complaint the judge has now thrown out. For now, the ruling is a setback for the department, delivered one day before the midterm elections in a case the judge said should not have been rushed to court.
