Floris and Benavides Face Preliminary Hearing on Laptop Fraud Charges
The former FBI officials are scheduled to argue in federal court that the case against them is baseless and that the charging process was procedurally unusual.
By Abigail Brooks ·
Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides will appear in federal court in Washington on Tuesday to address charges related to their testimony about Hunter Biden's laptop.
The Justice Department announced the prosecution on Friday. The case accuses the two former officials of lying to Congress regarding their knowledge of an investigation into a laptop that the agency says Hunter Biden left at a computer repair shop in 2019. Their attorneys describe the case as baseless and politically motivated.
The prosecution is part of a series of investigative actions taken by the Justice Department ahead of the midterm elections scheduled for next week. It is a rare criminal case against a former employee of the department. The laptop controversy first emerged in 2020 after the New York Post reported that it had obtained a hard drive from Rudy Giuliani, a close ally of President Donald Trump. The drive contained emails that appeared to document Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings.
The circumstances surrounding the laptop's discovery raised questions among Democrats and former intelligence officials about potential Russian involvement. This concern followed an assessment by the Trump administration's intelligence community that Moscow was attempting to undermine Joe Biden's candidacy. John Ratcliffe, the then-national intelligence director, stated there were no signs of Russian involvement. The FBI investigated Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges, which later resulted in felony convictions. President Joe Biden pardoned his son in late 2024.
Floris and Benavides led the Foreign Influence Task Force, which was established in the first Trump administration to monitor foreign influence campaigns. In August 2020, they briefed Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson on the task force's work. The senators criticized the FBI after the briefing was leaked, claiming their investigation into the Biden family had been discredited and falsely linked to Russian disinformation.
The criminal complaint alleges that Floris and Benavides denied having contemporaneous knowledge of the laptop or participating in internal FBI discussions about it when they testified to lawmakers in 2023. Their lawyers have denied any wrongdoing. The defense is expected to challenge the case at the preliminary hearing, specifically pointing to the fact that the charges were filed via a criminal complaint signed by a magistrate judge rather than an indictment from a grand jury.
The Justice Department has reportedly struggled to persuade grand juries in Washington to return indictments in high-profile cases. The Foreign Influence Task Force was disbanded in February 2025 by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi. Congressional Republicans had previously criticized the task force, arguing it attempted to discredit their investigations into the Biden family.
Source: ClickOnDetroit WDIV
