WASHINGTON — Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides were due back in a Washington courtroom at 11 a.m. Tuesday. Hours earlier, prosecutors rewrote the case against them.
A superseding complaint, filed early Tuesday, keeps the original charge — lying to Congress about the FBI’s Hunter Biden investigations — and adds another: obstructing a congressional proceeding. Kyle Cheney of Politico reported the new count Tuesday morning.
The complaint says the two former officials gave materially false statements about what they knew of the bureau’s Hunter Biden work and how much of it they were part of, and that the false statements corruptly obstructed Congress. Much of the filing is about the Foreign Influence Task Force, which both once helped run, and an operation called Round River.
It is also, on its face, an unusual document. Reporting on the filing describes it as unsigned and unsworn. Floris’s lawyers reacted within hours. Never, they said in a statement, in their combined decades of practice, had they seen or heard of such a filing. Public criminal charges, they argued, need a grand jury, a judge or the defendant to authorize them. They accused the government of cutting corners to delay the court fight over the case.
Floris is 46 and lives in Alexandria, Virginia. Benavides is 56, of Aiken, South Carolina. The two surrendered last week on a complaint dated Oct. 20 that charged each with making false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch.
The task force at the center of it all no longer exists. The FBI created the Foreign Influence Task Force to protect the 2020 election from foreign meddling, then shut it down in February 2025. Floris ran it as a deputy assistant director from mid-2019 to mid-2022. Benavides was a section chief from mid-2019 through the 2020 election.
House Judiciary Committee investigators interviewed both in 2023. Floris went first, on July 19. Asked about Hunter Biden, she said she had taken part in no discussions about him at the task force. Benavides testified on Sept. 28. He said he learned the FBI had Hunter Biden’s laptop from a Wikipedia article, which he had read while getting ready for the interview.
Prosecutors say the bureau’s own records contradict both accounts. The Justice Department says documentary evidence, contemporaneous communications and witness accounts line up against the testimony. On its account, Floris talked about the Hunter Biden investigations routinely — for more than a year, inside the task force and beyond it — and Benavides talked about the laptop regularly with FBI officials as the 2020 election approached.
“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,”
Tuesday’s hearing was set to test the government’s evidence. Defense lawyers were expected to question a government witness and press prosecutors on probable cause. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui scheduled the hearing last week, turning down a government request for more time.
The calendar is part of the story too. A new charge, filed a week before the Nov. 3 midterms, built on testimony from three years ago. Justice Department guidelines generally tell prosecutors to steer clear of overt steps in politically sensitive cases when an election is close.
None of this is a verdict. A complaint carries allegations, nothing more, and Floris and Benavides are presumed innocent unless the government proves its case in court.
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