Prosecutors Charge Two Ex-FBI Leaders With Perjury Over Hunter Biden Laptop

The Justice Department charged two former FBI officials on Friday with lying to Congress about the bureau's handling of investigations into Hunter Biden. The indictment accuses Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides of intentionally hiding information during their 2023 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Both women and men are now federal defendants in a case that prosecutors say strikes at the core of democratic accountability.

Floris previously led the intelligence division in the FBI's Washington field office. Benavides served as a deputy assistant director for counterintelligence. According to court documents, each faces a maximum prison term of five years if convicted. They appeared before a federal magistrate judge on Friday morning and were released on the same day.

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office is leading the prosecution. In a statement, Pirro said the pair undermined the institutions they swore to uphold. She stated that when senior FBI agents lie to Congress believing they are above the law, it is time to bring the hammer of justice down on them.

An FBI affidavit details the specific allegations against Floris. It claims she repeatedly denied any involvement in the Hunter Biden investigations while testifying. The document states she was actually in frequent communication with the case team for over a year. It also alleges she claimed ignorance of the laptop while coordinating the FBI's real-time response to news articles about it.

Benavides testified a few months after Floris. He told the committee he knew little about the matter and claimed he learned about the laptop from a Wikipedia entry while preparing his testimony. The affidavit asserts he was in constant communication about the device over a period of days. A committee member said these answers influenced the investigation by thwarting follow-up interviews and subpoenas.

Defense attorneys rejected the charges. Lawyers for Floris called the indictment a case of false accusations based on the say-so of politicians rather than facts. They described her as a patriot who served as an FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years. They noted the timing of the charges, filing them on the eve of an election.

Ron Safer, Benavides' attorney, urged the court to hold a hearing on whether prosecutors had sufficient evidence against two lifetime public servants. US Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui raised concerns about the timing and asked whether the statements materially impacted the investigation. He granted the defense request for a hearing to weigh the government's evidence.

The hearing is set for Tuesday, a date sooner than typically expected for defendants released on bail. Faruqui noted that the charges were filed more than three years after the testimony. He described the information as old and said the defendants had sparkling backgrounds in law enforcement. He added that a sword of Damocles hangs over their heads, noting the matter will follow them for the rest of their lives.

The laptop at the center of the case was handed to the FBI in 2019. A computer shop owner told the Washington Post that Hunter Biden dropped it off and never returned to collect it. The owner said he turned it over to authorities after viewing some of its contents. The device has long been a partisan flashpoint, with Republicans citing evidence of corruption and Democrats describing it as a conspiracy.

The charges come as many FBI agents accused by Trump allies of working against him have been pushed out of the bureau since the start of his second term. Some say they were dismissed for working on investigations involving Trump, while others cite a lack of loyalty as the reason for their firing.