Two ex-FBI officials charged with lying to Congress over Hunter Biden laptop

WASHINGTON — The US Justice Department charged two former senior FBI intelligence officials on Friday with lying to Congress about their role in the Hunter Biden laptop investigation in the run-up to the 2020 election, the Associated Press reported.

Nikki Floris, 46, and Bradley Benavides, 56, formerly of the FBI’s since-disbanded Foreign Influence Task Force, are each charged with one count of making false statements, according to CNN and The Wall Street Journal. If convicted, each faces up to five years in prison, the New York Post reported.

The pair self-surrendered on Friday and made their first appearance in Washington federal court before Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui, who set a further hearing for Tuesday.

The charging documents allege the pair concealed the task force’s engagement with the laptop case during 2023 testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. Benavides allegedly told lawmakers he first learned the FBI had the laptop from a Wikipedia entry, while internal FBI messages and colleagues’ testimony show the pair discussed Hunter Biden and the laptop frequently and helped shape the public narrative ahead of the 2020 election.

Defence lawyers deny wrongdoing. Floris’s attorneys called her a “patriot” accused “on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts,” saying it was “no coincidence” the charges came “on the eve of an election,” the AP reported. Benavides’s lawyers called them “baseless” and “transparently political.”

DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced the charges alongside FBI Director Kash Patel. They come less than two weeks before the Nov 3 midterm elections.

Sources: Associated Press · CNN · New York Post · Wall Street Journal