Federal Charges Filed Against Former FBI Officials Over Hunter Biden Testimony

Two former FBI counterintelligence officials are charged with lying to lawmakers and obstructing a congressional proceeding over their testimony about the bureau's investigations of Hunter Biden. The Justice Department filed the accusations in a superseding complaint early on Tuesday, hours before Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides were scheduled to appear in federal court in Washington, D.C. for a preliminary hearing.

The complaint is unsigned and unsworn. It alleges that Floris and Benavides "knowingly and willfully provided materially false statements" to a congressional committee about their awareness of and involvement in the FBI's work involving Hunter Biden, and that they thereby obstructed the administration of the law. The filing concerns statements they made about their roles on the Foreign Influence Task Force and a counterintelligence operation called "Round River," which collected derogatory informant reporting on Hunter Biden to flag it as Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election.

Floris testified before a congressional committee on July 19, 2023, and Benavides testified on September 28, 2023, according to the complaint. Floris served as deputy assistant director of the task force from mid-2019 through mid-2022. Benavides served as its section chief from mid-2019 through the 2020 election. The complaint states that the two men made false statements "for the purpose of minimizing or concealing" the task force's engagement with and communications about the Hunter Biden investigations, and to impede the congressional investigation.

At Tuesday's hearing, lawyers for Floris and Benavides were expected to question a government witness to test the strength of the complaint and whether prosecutors can establish probable cause that a crime occurred. The filing, three years after the testimony and close to the midterm elections, drew comment from former prosecutors and other federal officials. Criminal complaints in felony cases are typically used in more urgent circumstances, such as ongoing threats to public safety or national security. Justice Department guidelines have generally urged prosecutors to avoid overt investigative steps in politically sensitive cases near a national election.

Floris' legal team said in a statement provided to CBS News that the filing came "in the middle of the night" and attempted to address problems with an earlier charge against her. "In our combined decades of DOJ service, we have never seen or even heard of something like this being filed," her lawyers said. They added that the filing of criminal charges must be authorized by a grand jury, a judge, or the defendant, and said they had asked to address the matter at the court hearing.