Two former FBI agents face preliminary hearing in case over Biden laptop claims
Prosecutors charge the former Foreign Influence Task Force leaders with lying to Congress about their awareness of the computer.
By Lucas Murphy ·
Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides will stand before a federal judge in Washington on Tuesday to answer charges that they lied to Congress regarding the 2019 discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop. The former FBI officials, who once led the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force, face a criminal complaint that their legal team describes as baseless and politically motivated. This hearing marks a key procedural step in a case that has drawn sharp political lines just days before the midterm elections.
The Justice Department announced the prosecution of the two agents on Friday. The case centers on allegations that Floris and Benavides falsely downplayed their knowledge of the laptop during 2023 congressional testimony. Specifically, the complaint accuses them of denying contemporaneous awareness of the device or internal FBI discussions about it. Their lawyers have denied any wrongdoing and are expected to challenge the validity of the charges at the preliminary hearing.
Defense attorneys plan to point out a procedural anomaly in how the case was brought. Unlike typical high-profile federal prosecutions, Floris and Benavides were charged via a criminal complaint signed by a magistrate judge rather than an indictment returned by a grand jury. Prosecutors in the nation’s capital have often struggled to secure grand jury indictments in similar politically charged cases, making this procedural choice a focal point for the defense.
The laptop at the center of the dispute was reportedly left at a computer repair shop in Delaware in 2019. The New York Post later reported obtaining a hard drive from the device through Rudy Giuliani, a close ally of President Donald Trump, and published emails suggesting foreign business dealings for Hunter Biden. The revelation emerged in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign, fueling debate over the device’s provenance and the potential for foreign influence.
Democrat and former intelligence officials raised concerns that Russia may have been involved in surfacing the laptop, particularly given that the Trump administration’s intelligence community assessed Moscow was trying to undermine Joe Biden’s candidacy. John Ratcliffe, then-director of national intelligence, countered these fears by stating there were no signs of Russian actor involvement. The FBI subsequently investigated Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges, leading to felony convictions that President Joe Biden pardoned in late 2024.
Floris and Benavides headed the Foreign Influence Task Force, created during the first Trump administration to monitor foreign campaigns aimed at sowing discord and spreading disinformation. In August 2020, the two officials briefed Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, who were investigating Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine. The senators later criticized the FBI, claiming the task force’s briefings falsely linked their inquiries to Russian disinformation efforts.
The Foreign Influence Task Force was disbanded in February 2025 by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi. The current prosecution represents a rare criminal case brought by the Justice Department against former employees of the FBI. As the agents return to court, the case continues to test the boundaries of executive oversight over the bureau’s historical investigations into the Biden family.
Source: WKMG-TV
