Two former FBI officials have been charged with lying to Congress about their roles in the agency’s Hunter Biden probes, federal authorities announced Friday.
“Lying to Congress by anyone strikes at the heart of our democratic system but when senior FBI agents lie to Congress believing they are above the law, it’s time to bring the hammer of justice down on them,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said in a statement announcing the indictment. “When senior officials entrusted with safeguarding our nation’s security choose deception over duty, they undermine the very institutions they swore to uphold. Today’s action makes clear that no one is above the law, and we will hold accountable all who obstruct the truth.”
According to FBI Director Kash Patel, federal authorities took former FBI officials Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides into custody on Friday morning. Both have been charged for allegedly lying to Congress in 2023 about their roles in the FBI’s since-dissolved Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF).
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed in October 2023 how the task force “used a sham assessment opened by FBI headquarters to cull reporting from confidential human sources (CHS) throughout the country related to the Biden family and then falsely brand the intelligence as ‘foreign disinformation,'” as The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland reported. The news came a year after Grassley revealed whistleblower allegations that the Christopher Wray-led FBI “developed information in 2020 about Hunter Biden’s criminal financial and related activity but ultimately shut it down based on false assertions that it was subject to foreign disinformation.”
Floris — who once bragged about “running a shadow government across the FBI” — served as the FITF’s deputy assistant director from mid-2019 through mid-2022, according to Patel. Benavides was the task force’s section chief from mid-2019 through the 2020 election.
According to the newly released criminal complaint, both former officials “knowingly and willfully provided materially false information about their awareness of and involvement in the FBI’s investigations into Hunter Biden” when testifying before Congress in 2023. Pirro’s office alleged that their sworn statements “were contradicted by documentary evidence, communications, and witness accounts and concerned matters directly relevant to the congressional investigation.”
“The evidence further establishes probable cause to believe that FLORIS and BENAVIDES made these statements for the purpose of concealing FITF’s engagement with and communications about the Hunter Biden investigations and impeding the congressional investigation,” the complaint reads. “Accordingly, there is probable cause to believe that FLORIS and BENAVIDES violated 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), by knowingly and willfully making materially false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch.”
Hunter Biden was convicted on federal charges related to an unlawful gun purchase and later pled guilty to several tax offenses in 2024, although the indictments were largely seen as a cover for obfuscating Joe Biden’s role in the Biden family business. The younger Biden received a sweeping pardon from his father during the latter’s final days in office.
Further legacy media propaganda, the @AP conveniently/purposefully leaves out they were charged with lying to Congress, which is a crime https://t.co/QE617ve4RD
— Alexa Henning (@alexahenning) October 23, 2026
As described by Pirro’s office, Floris testified to Congress “that she had no involvement in the Hunter Biden investigations” and that “she knew nothing” about Hunter’s infamous laptop. According to the feds, however, Floris “was in frequent communication with the case team for over a year during which she both sent and received information about Hunter Biden,” and “coordinated the FBI’s response to news articles about the laptop in real time.”
These and other “knowing, willful, and materially false statements hindered a duly convened Congressional committee from exercising oversight of the Executive Branch,” the complaint reads.
Pirro’s office alleged that Benavides’ testimony followed a similar pattern. The federal agency contended, for example, that the then-FBI official “testified that he knew about” the New York Post’s 2020 report on Hunter’s laptop regarding Hunter “[o]nly in the—from the prep material,” despite allegedly “extensively discuss[ing] the laptop story the day it broke.”
The complaint includes additional examples of what the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. alleges amount to perjury by Floris and Benavides.
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) October 23, 2026Two 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.
The charges stem from an ongoing investigation into the…
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood