DOJ Adds an Obstruction Count Against Two Ex-FBI Officials. Prosecutors Say Their 2023 Answers on the Hunter Biden Laptop Thwarted Congress.
Two former leaders of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force were arrested on October 23 for allegedly lying to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 about their role in the Hunter Biden investigations. This week, according to RedState and The Western Journal, prosecutors added a charge of corruptly obstructing that committee’s inquiry.
The new count turns a false-statement case into a claim about consequences: that the answers did not just misstate the record, but stopped Congress from following up. The charges are allegations in a complaint, not an indictment, and both officials deny wrongdoing.
- 2 — former FBI Foreign Influence Task Force officials charged, Nikki Cole Floris and Bradley Benavides · Source: Fox News, Oct. 23, 2026
- 1 — obstruction count added in a superseding complaint, alleging the false answers thwarted follow-up interviews and subpoenas · Source: The Western Journal; RedState
- 0 — indictments so far; a federal grand jury must still act · Source: RedState
Nikki Cole Floris was deputy assistant director and functional head of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF). Bradley Benavides was its section chief. Both surrendered on arrest warrants on October 23, according to Fox News, charged with making false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of Congress, under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), per Newsweek.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro (R) announced the case. “Lying to Congress by anyone strikes at the heart of our democratic system,” she said, per Fox News. RedState quotes her describing senior officials who lie to Congress as “believing they are above the law.” FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump administration appointee, said the task force has since been dissolved.
The obstruction count came in a superseding complaint filed this week. Per The Western Journal’s account of the affidavit, the false answers significantly influenced the committee’s investigation, including by thwarting follow-up interviews and subpoenas. Because the case began by complaint, a grand jury in Washington must still return an indictment, RedState notes.
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. The charges stem from an ongoing investigation into the…
Opening of a longer post; the card shows the portion available to us, verbatim.
Floris testified before the House Judiciary Committee on July 19, 2023, per CBS News. Asked whether she had any involvement in the Hunter Biden investigation, she answered, “I did not.” Asked whether the task force ever discussed Hunter Biden, she said, “No. At least not with me.”
Benavides, interviewed that September, said he learned of an ongoing criminal investigation from “the Wikipedia page,” CBS reports. Prosecutors say email logs and witness accounts contradict both: that Floris discussed Hunter Biden with colleagues, circulated a Senate report mentioning a possible Burisma bribe and helped manage the FBI’s response after the New York Post published the laptop story; and that Benavides discussed the laptop the day it broke and approved talking points suggesting it might be Russian disinformation, per RedState. A congressional staffer who attended both interviews called the testimony “materially untrue,” CBS reports.
“I am basically running a shadow government inside the FBI right now.”
Floris, in a chat log from files the White House declassified in July, as quoted by RedState
The complaint, per CBS, centers on an FITF operation called Round River, which allegedly gathered derogatory informant reporting on Hunter Biden and flagged it as Russian disinformation. We reported the outline of that operation in our earlier investigation of how the FBI handled the Biden family probe.
CBS also reports that on August 6, 2020, Floris and Benavides gave separate defensive briefings to Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) about potential Russian disinformation. Fox News reports both senators have accused the two of using that briefing to undermine the Hunter Biden inquiry. Fox News reports that the FBI authenticated the laptop during Hunter Biden’s 2024 federal gun trial.
That is the cost the obstruction count tries to name. If the committee was told in 2023 that the task force had no role, there was less reason to subpoena its records or call more of its people, which is what prosecutors argue happened.
Floris’s lawyers call her “a patriot” who served nearly 20 years and say the charges were brought “on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts,” per Fox News; CBS reports they called the case nonsense filed “on the eve of an election.” Benavides’s attorney, Ron Safer, said, per CBS, that the alleged conduct “happened years ago” and that the government has had the information for years.
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui called the charging approach “strange” and rejected a prosecution request to delay the preliminary hearing by two weeks or more, setting it for Tuesday, October 27, per CBS. That hearing tests probable cause, not guilt, and we have not seen its outcome. CBS also notes that the 2025 cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) were dismissed after a judge found the interim U.S. attorney unlawfully appointed.
Nikki Cole Floris — former FITF deputy assistant director. Charged; presumed innocent. Political affiliation not publicly reported.
Bradley Benavides — former FITF section chief. Charged; presumed innocent. Political affiliation not publicly reported.
Jeanine Pirro (R) — U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, announced the charges.
Prosecutors say two former FBI task force leaders denied under questioning what their own emails show, and that it cost Congress its follow-up. A grand jury, a judge and a jury have not yet weighed in, and both officials say the case is political.
