Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden, seen in July 2024 in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images hide title toggle title i Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images The Justice Department has charged two former FBI employees with making false statements to Congress in connection with the bureau’s investigations into Hunter Biden and his laptop before the 2020 presidential election. Bradley Benavides and Nikki Floris each face a single criminal charge stemming from testimony before lawmakers in 2023. The pair, who held senior positions in the FBI’s now-defunct Foreign Influence Task Force, He turned himself in and made his initial court appearance Friday morning in Washington, DC. The new indictment is the latest politically fraught case brought by the Justice Department since President Trump returned to the White House. It once again brings to light the bizarre saga surrounding former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and his various legal troubles that arose throughout the 2020 presidential campaign. Hunter Biden’s laptop came under intense scrutiny after The New York Post reported weeks before the 2020 presidential election that the device was abandoned at a Delaware repair shop in 2019 and later obtained by President Trump’s former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Republicans have long accused the FBI of mishandling the laptop and investigations into the younger Biden. Hunter Biden was found guilty of federal weapons charges and later pleaded guilty to various tax crimes. (Joe Biden signed a full and unconditional pardon for his son in December 2024.) In a statement on Prosecutors charged Benavides and Floris by criminal complaint, meaning they have not yet obtained an indictment from a grand jury. Under the second Trump administration, grand juries in the nation’s capital and other cities have repeatedly declined to return indictments in high-profile, politically charged cases. In a court hearing Friday morning, Judge Zia Faruqui noted that both defendants have “brilliant experiences” in federal law enforcement and were long-time dedicated public servants. He also noted that it is unusual to accuse them through a criminal complaint for “quite old” conduct. Court hearing scheduled for next week Benavides, 56, and Floris, 46, are due back in court for a preliminary hearing on Tuesday. In a statement, Floris’ attorneys called her a “patriot” who served as a “dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years.” “Yet today, the Department of Justice has falsely accused her of a crime based on politicians’ opinion, not the facts. It is no coincidence that the government is bringing these senseless charges now, years later, on the eve of an election,” they added. The Post reported that Hunter Biden’s laptop showed irregularities by then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who subsequently won the election. It was later discovered that some of the data on the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden. House Republicans subsequently launched an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, focusing on Hunter Biden’s business dealings at the time his father was vice president. But no evidence has ever been presented that Joe Biden benefited financially from his son’s business activities. The complaint alleges that Benavides and Floris had real-time knowledge of Hunter Biden’s investigations, including from his laptop, in their highest positions at the Foreign Influence Task Force. But in interviews with the House Judiciary Committee in 2023, both allegedly lied about their knowledge of and participation in those investigations. Those alleged false statements were important to the committee’s investigation, the complaint says, because they allowed both Benavides and Floris to “escape” further questioning about Hunter Biden, hampering the panel’s investigation.
