A federal judge on Monday dismissed a criminal complaint against two former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress during its investigation of Hunter Biden, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News.
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui ruled that the government failed to prove that Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides lied to lawmakers about what they knew about the investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop. Data from the abandoned computer later led to criminal charges against former President Joe Biden’s son.
The case was filed as a criminal complaint rather than presented to a federal grand jury in Washington, where jurors have been skeptical of politically charged cases against alleged Trump enemies, most recently rejecting the attempted indictment of Cassidy Hutchinson.
The complaint alleged the duo lied about their roles on the Foreign Influence Task Force and “their roles in the FBI’s investigations of Hunter Biden” during their testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in 2023.
The firing comes after an FBI agent testified at a preliminary hearing last week that he was concerned the investigation, led by FBI Director Kash Patel, would be seen as “political.” He also acknowledged that a prosecutor handling the case acknowledged the criminal complaint was flawed in a phone call last week.
That prosecutor, Carlton Davis — a top aide to U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro — is a former Republican Hill staffer who was also involved in the failed indictment of six sitting members of Congress over a social media video that President Donald Trump disapproved of.
Pirro’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s decision.
The case could theoretically still move forward if the Justice Department can convince federal grand jurors of probable cause, but that outcome seems unlikely given Faruqui’s conclusion that their complaint did not meet that legal standard.
Faruqui previously criticized the government for attempting to bring additional charges against the ex-agents by filing a new, unsigned complaint in court without permission from a judge.
Floris and Benavides had been the target of criticism from close allies of the president. Both had worked on security issues for the 2020 presidential election, which Trump falsely claimed was stolen.
Benavides’ lawyers praised the judge’s decision and called the charges against their client “political theater.”
“Bradley Benavides is a patriot,” the statement said. “He is a public servant. And he is innocent. We are grateful that Judge Faruqui carefully weighed the woefully insufficient evidence against the law, and concluded that the government could not meet the extremely low burden of probable cause.”
“We can only hope that the government will not now go to the grand jury and try to litigate this case behind closed doors, where it can shape the narrative and we are unable to present our side of the story,” it read.
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