WASHINGTON — Two former FBI officials who have come under withering criticism from allies of President Donald Trump have been charged with allegedly lying to Congress over the investigation into former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
A court docket shows that Nikki Floris, the former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, and Bradley Benavides, another FBI official, were facing one count of the rarely-charged criminal offense which can be difficult to prosecute.
Hunter Biden was investigated, charged and eventually convicted of gun and tax crimes, before his father pardoned him shortly leaving office.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said in a social media post that Floris and Benavides had surrendered Friday morning. She alleged that the duo lied about their roles in the Foreign Influence Task Force and “about their roles in the FBI’s Hunter Biden investigations.”
Attorneys for Floris said in a statement that Floris was “a patriot” who “served our nation as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years” and was charged so the administration could “push a false narrative for a shot at political points.”
Attorneys Margaret Donovan, Chris Mattei, Mary Dohrmann and Kyle R. Freeny said in a statement that the “DOJ has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts. It’s no coincidence the government is filing these nonsense charges now, years later, on the eve of an election.”
One of the attorneys for Benavides, Ronald S. Safer, called the charges a disgrace and said Friday that his client “worked tirelessly to protect the public from terrorists and agents of foreign governments” for 20 years and “protected our democracy against those who would destroy it.”
FOR SUBSCRIBERSMAHA votes may be up for grabs
FOR SUBSCRIBERSVivek Ramaswamy supporters criticize his controversial ad
FOR SUBSCRIBERSNetflix bets on ‘La Bola Negra’ for best picture: On the Lot
FOR SUBSCRIBERSMAHA votes may be up for grabs
FOR SUBSCRIBERSVivek Ramaswamy supporters criticize his controversial ad
FOR SUBSCRIBERSNetflix bets on ‘La Bola Negra’ for best picture: On the Lot
“In return, today, the government that he loves brought baseless criminal charges against him in a transparently political complaint,” Safer said. “This is another sad day for the Department of Justice. But now we are in court, and the truth will come out: Brad Benavides is a true patriot who devoted his career to protecting this country and its people.”
Trump commented on the case Friday evening while speaking to reporters in Florida.
“I don’t know exactly what it is, but I heard they were arrested or charged. And I heard they were bad people,” Trump said. “You know, they’re crooked people. You know what they are? Dirty cops, like Comey.”
The Trump administration is pursuing a separate case against former FBI Director James Comey, a frequent target of Trump’s, over a photo he posted on Instagram, and later deleted, of seashells arranged to spell out “8647” that prosecutors said amounted to a threat against the president. Comey has not yet entered a plea in the case but has said it did not occur to him that the numbers could be interpreted in a violent way.
Asked on Friday evening if he believes the FBI was protecting the Bidens before the 2020 election, Trump said, “Yeah, I guess.”
The case against the two former FBI officials was brought through a criminal complaint. Neither defendant has yet been indicted by a federal grand jury in D.C., where grand jurors have been skeptical of cases brought during Trump’s second term. Earlier this year, federal grand jurors rejected an attempt to indict six sitting Democratic members of Congress over a video Trump criticized.
Flores was the FBI’s security lead for the 2020 presidential election, which Trump has falsely claimed was stolen. A mob of Trump supporters violently broke into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed effort to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden as president. They beat and bloodied law enforcement, shattered windows and broke through barriers.
She joined the FBI as an intelligence analyst in 2005, working on the director’s daily briefing staff and helped produce intelligence documents. She was promoted in 2017 to the department’s counterterrorism division.
Benavides is a former colleague of Floris who focused on election security, foreign influence and Chinese intelligence threats.
Floris has also been under criticism from Republicans over emails in which she discussed intelligence work that were obtained by Congress and declassified in July by Trump.
Republicans have alleged that FBI officials buried what they describe as a credible report on China’s efforts to influence the election in an effort to protect then-FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Intelligence officials and her legal team have said the pullback was a standard administrative move for a report that may have been unverified or had flawed intelligence.
