A federal judge has dismissed criminal charges against two former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress about their roles in an investigation involving Hunter Biden, the son of former president Joe Biden.
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said prosecutors had failed to establish probable cause that Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides knowingly made false statements. He also said some of the statements cited by prosecutors were not false, while others could have resulted from honest errors in memory.
Faruqui criticized federal prosecutors for rushing the case and making critical mistakes. He also suggested that the charges had been filed at a politically sensitive moment, just 10 days before the midterm elections.
“What has transpired here cannot be described as anything other than weaponization,” Faruqui said during the hearing, adding that he would not ignore the timing of the prosecution.
Prosecutors in Washington DC charged Floris and Benavides last month over testimony they gave to the House judiciary committee in 2023. The former officials had been questioned about the FBI’s handling of information from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden.
Both officials served on an FBI taskforce examining potential foreign influence in US politics. The unit was created after the 2016 presidential election, amid concerns that Russia had attempted to interfere in the vote.
Before the 2020 election, the taskforce considered whether Russia might launch another disinformation campaign to support Donald Trump by promoting claims related to Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The case against Floris and Benavides reportedly began after the president discussed election security in a July primetime address and announced that the FBI would examine whether US intelligence agencies had suppressed information about alleged Chinese interference in the 2020 election. The following day, FBI director Kash Patel assigned the bureau’s Kansas City field office to scrutinize Floris, who had questioned an intelligence report alleging that China sought to influence the 2020 election in Joe Biden’s favor.
The dismissal does not necessarily end the matter. Prosecutors could seek to bring the case again by presenting the evidence to a grand jury and requesting approval of new charges.
Sources: The Guardian World.