Ex-FBI Official Who Said She Ran a 'Shadow Government' Charged With Lying About Hunter Biden

Two former senior FBI officials who ran the bureau's 2020 election task force were arrested Friday, charged with lying to Congress about Hunter Biden. Nikki Cole Floris, 46, of Alexandria, Va., and Bradley Benavides, 56, of Aiken, S.C., surrendered on arrest warrants in Washington, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced.

Prosecutors say both told the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 that their unit had nothing to do with the FBI's Hunter Biden investigations. The government says its evidence shows the opposite. Benavides, for one, testified that he only found out the FBI had Hunter Biden's laptop by reading a Wikipedia article in 2023. Prosecutors say he regularly discussed the laptop with FBI officials in the run-up to the 2020 election (DOJ).

FBI Director Kash Patel added a detail that will stick: one of the two "is on record privately claiming to be 'running a shadow government' during the 2020 election." Patel's post says that was Floris (FBI Director Kash Patel).

Who they are

Floris led the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, known as the FITF, as a deputy assistant director from mid-2019 to mid-2022. Benavides was the task force's section chief from mid-2019 through the 2020 election. The FITF was the unit in charge of guarding the 2020 race from foreign meddling, and it has since been shut down (DOJ).

Both kept rising after 2020. Floris went on to run the intelligence division at the FBI's Washington Field Office, and Benavides became a deputy assistant director in the Counterintelligence Division (CBS News). The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in July that Floris had since gone to work at Microsoft (DCNF).

What they said, and what prosecutors say

Each is charged with one count of making false statements in a matter before Congress, under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2). That carries up to five years in prison. Both were warned before their interviews that lying to Congress is a crime (DOJ).

Floris sat for her transcribed interview on July 19, 2023. She told the committee she was involved in no discussions about Hunter Biden while she was at the task force. Prosecutors say she discussed the FBI's Hunter Biden investigations "routinely for more than a year," both inside the FITF and with others in the bureau. Benavides sat for his on Sept. 28, 2023 (DOJ; CBS News).

The statement of facts filed with the complaint says the evidence shows the two made those statements "for the purpose of concealing [the Foreign Influence Task Force's] engagement with and communications about the Hunter Biden investigations and impeding the congressional investigation" (CBS News). Patel said "documentary evidence, contemporaneous communications, and witness accounts" contradict what they told Congress.

The briefing that smeared two senators

These are not random names. On Aug. 6, 2020, Floris and Benavides gave Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson a so-called "defensive briefing" about Russian disinformation, right as the two Republicans were finishing their investigation into Hunter Biden's foreign money. The senators later said it was mostly things they already knew and had nothing to do with their probe. Word of the briefing leaked to the press and was used to paint their work as Russian propaganda (House Judiciary Committee).

"The briefing was unnecessary and completely irrelevant to the substance of our investigation," Grassley later testified. "It was only done because the Democrats wanted it done so they could try and smear us. And the FBI wrongly did their bidding" (House Judiciary Committee).

It is like a referee pulling a team aside mid-game to warn them about cheating they weren't doing, then letting the crowd hear about it. The warning was the point. Two months later, when the New York Post broke the laptop story on Oct. 14, 2020, the "Russian disinformation" label was already waiting for it. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has said he believes he got the same briefing. "It was a farce," he told Public in August (Public).

The shadow government message

The "shadow government" line first surfaced in July, when President Trump declassified FBI files on how the bureau handled 2020 election intelligence. In late September 2020, an FBI field office sent out a tip alleging that China had shipped thousands of fake driver's licenses into the U.S. to create fraudulent mail-in ballots. The files show Floris moved fast to get it pulled back, and it was retracted. Around that time she wrote a colleague that she was running a "shadow government" inside the FBI (Daily Caller News Foundation; Epoch Times).

House Judiciary Republicans did not mince words Friday. "Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides are anti-Trump activists who weaponized the federal government," the committee posted. "Our Committee uncovered their lies. And today the DOJ is holding them accountable."

What Pirro and Patel said

"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," Pirro said. "Today's action makes clear that no one is above the law, and we will hold accountable all who obstruct the truth" (DOJ).

Pirro said the two had been "helping shape the public narrative about Hunter Biden's laptop right before the election" (@USAttyPirro). Patel tied the case to his cleanup of the bureau: "We have already dismantled the corrupt CR-15 squad that engaged in political weaponization targeting their opponents, including President Trump." He thanked the FBI's Kansas City field office for its work on the case (@FBIDirectorKash).

What's next

Both appeared Friday before Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui in federal court in Washington, where their lawyers asked for a quick hearing to fight the charges. Faruqui ordered everyone back at 11 a.m. Tuesday for a preliminary hearing on whether there is probable cause (CBS News; AP). Floris's lawyers called the charges "nonsense" and said she was accused "on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts" (Fox News).

For six years, the people who called the laptop Russian disinformation never had to answer for it. Now two of the officials at the center of how the FBI handled it are charged with lying about their part, and a federal judge in Washington will start weighing the government's evidence on Tuesday.