A federal magistrate judge on Monday dismissed the criminal complaint against two former FBI officials accused of misleading Congress in 2023 about the bureau's work on the Hunter Biden laptop investigation. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said the case against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides "cannot be described as anything other than weaponization."
Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui at Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 22, 2024. (Craig Hudson/The Washington Post)According to Faruqui, the investigation was rushed, overtly political and marked by "critical mistakes" - and was opened a day after a primetime speech by President Trump, while FBI Director Kash Patel was tracking it closely. His point? The DOJ could have brought the case at any time, but chose to do so two weeks before the midterm elections: "I will not bury my head in the sand and pretend that I cannot read a calendar."
Two former senior FBI officials, Nikki Cole Floris and Bradley Benavides, were taken into custody today on charges of allegedly lying to Congress about their involvement in the FBI’s investigations into Hunter Biden.
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) O
The charges stem from an ongoing investigation into the…
