The Charge
On Friday, Oct. 23, the Justice Department charged Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, two former senior FBI officials, with one count each of lying to Congress. The two served on the bureau's Foreign Influence Task Force, the unit set up after Russia's 2016 interference to watch for covert foreign meddling in American politics. Floris was its deputy assistant director from mid-2019 to mid-2022. Benavides was a section chief there through the 2020 election.
REPORTED. The complaint says that in 2023, before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, both played down how much they knew about the FBI's Hunter Biden investigations. CBS News quotes Floris, on July 19, 2023, being asked whether she had any involvement in the Hunter Biden investigation. "I did not," she answered. Asked when he learned of the criminal case tied to the laptop, Benavides said, "The Wikipedia page." Prosecutors say messages and witness accounts from December 2019 through September 2021 show both were in the loop, that they sat in classified briefings on the case, and that they helped prepare the Aug. 6, 2020, defensive briefings that warned Sens. Charles Grassley and Ron Johnson about possible Russian disinformation.
FBI Director Kash Patel said on X that "lying to Congress by senior FBI officials strikes at the heart of our system." CBS →
A Judge Calls It Strange
REPORTED. A complaint is signed off by a magistrate judge. It never goes before a grand jury, and prosecutors must get an indictment within 30 days unless there is a plea. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said in court on Friday that it was strange prosecutors had not sought one. He turned down their request to put off the preliminary hearing and set it for 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 27, when prosecutors must show probable cause. He noted that the charges would "follow them for the rest of their lives."
REPORTED. The case did not come from the local U.S. attorney's office in the usual way. The Times reports the prosecutor, James Kirkpatrick, was brought in from Kansas City; a spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told CBS he works in her criminal division. MS NOW notes that Washington grand juries have refused to indict several cases brought by Pirro's office. Prosecutors brought in from outside also handled the Comey and Letitia James cases, both dismissed after a judge found the interim U.S. attorney had been unlawfully appointed.
Floris's lawyer, Margaret Donovan, called her client "a patriot" who served "for nearly two decades," and said: "It's no coincidence the government is filing these nonsense charges now, years later, on the eve of an election." Ronald Safer, for Benavides, said his client spent 20 years protecting the public against "agents of foreign governments," and called the complaint "transparently political." He told the court the government "has had the information about this for years."
What the Warnings Were About
DOCUMENTED. The task force's 2020 warnings were not a hunch. On Sept. 10, 2020, the Treasury Department sanctioned Andrii Derkach, a Ukrainian member of parliament, calling him "an active Russian agent for over a decade" who ran a covert campaign aimed at the 2020 race by "cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials," including edited audio tapes released that spring and summer. Treasury → The laptop itself is a separate question; its contents were later used as evidence at Hunter Biden's gun trial. The warnings were about a foreign campaign to push Biden-Ukraine stories, and the government's own sanctions say that campaign was real.
The bribery claim at the center of the House inquiry in 2023 did not hold up either. It came from an FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, who told his handler that Burisma executives had paid Joe and Hunter Biden $5 million apiece around 2015.
REPORTED. Smirnov pleaded guilty in December 2024 to lying to the FBI and to tax evasion, and in January 2025 a federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced him to six years. Prosecutors said his dealings with Burisma were routine and began in 2017, after Biden left the vice presidency. In 2025, after his case was reassigned, a new prosecutor joined his lawyers in asking that he be released while he appeals, saying the government would review its "theory of the case." Judge Otis Wright said no; Smirnov was still a flight risk.
The irony does not escape this Old Goat. The man who made up the bribery claim is in prison on a guilty plea. Two of the people who warned in 2020 that Russia was pushing Biden-Ukraine stories are now the ones in court.
Why a Father Signed a Pardon
DOCUMENTED. On Dec. 1, 2024, President Biden pardoned his son. His statement said Hunter had been "singled out only because he is my son," and that the charges came about after political opponents in Congress "instigated them to attack me and oppose my election." Hunter Biden was convicted on federal gun charges and pleaded guilty to tax charges. He was never charged over the foreign business allegations.
OPINION. The Old Goat thinks this is the kind of prosecution that pardon was written to head off. In December 2024 a father could see where things were heading. The Ukraine story had already been through one impeachment, a House inquiry and a fabricated informant report, and the people who had pushed it were about to run the Justice Department. Friday's complaint is not about Hunter Biden, but it reopens the 2020 laptop fight through the people who questioned it. If the department will charge the FBI officials who warned about a foreign campaign, it is not hard to believe a father expected it to come after his son as well. The pardon was criticized at the time as special treatment. This case makes it easier to see what he was afraid of.
INFERENCE. The timing speaks for itself. The testimony was given in July and September 2023. The five-year limit on false-statement charges would have run into 2028. The department filed eleven days before a midterm, without a grand jury, in a court where grand juries have balked.
Counter-evidence, plainly. Lying to Congress is a crime whoever is in power, and the complaint quotes internal messages that, if real and in context, do sit badly with "I did not." The defense has not yet answered the documents. A probable-cause hearing on Tuesday will be the first test, and the Old Goat will report what the judge finds. Related: The Pardon Market →