From The New York Times:
Judge Throws Out Charges Against Former F.B.I. Officials The magistrate judge, Zia M. Faruqui, said the case was a rushed, political prosecution ordered by the White House intended to affect the midterm elections.
Judge Zia M. Faruqui admonished prosecutors on Monday for trying to avoid some of the fundamental checks and balances of the criminal justice system. Credit... Craig Hudson for The Washington Post, via Getty Images By Alan Feuer
Reporting from Federal District Court in Washington
Nov. 2, 2026 A federal magistrate judge on Monday threw out charges against two former F.B.I. intelligence officials accused of lying to Congress, excoriating prosecutors for what he described as a failure of one of their most basic responsibilities: showing there was any probable cause that crimes had been committed in the first place. In an emotional, hourlong address from the bench in Federal District Court in Washington, the magistrate judge, Zia M. Faruqui, said that the case against the former officials — Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides — was a rushed, political prosecution ordered by the White House intended to affect the upcoming midterm elections. Two weeks ago, the administration charged the former officials with falsely minimizing their work on investigations involving Hunter Biden, the son of the former president. Judge Faruqui blasted the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington for how it handled the case, admonishing prosecutors for trying to avoid some of the fundamental checks and balances of the criminal justice system. At the same time, he apologized directly to Ms. Floris and Mr. Benavides for having been “dragged through this process” of being charged by the same federal government they had served for decades. “I am deeply troubled by what happened here in this case,” Judge Faruqui said. “What has transpired here cannot be described as anything other than weaponization.” The dismissal of the charges was the Justice Department’s latest failure to follow through on President Trump’s relentless demands to take revenge against a long list of people who have run afoul of him. In recent months, both judges and grand juries have repeatedly rejected the department’s attempts to prosecute the president’s enemies in a growing — and humiliating — series of legal defeats. Ms. Floris and Mr. Benavides drew the president’s ire because of their work on the F.B.I.’s Foreign Influence Task Force, a group created after Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The task force was designed to help intelligence agencies monitor clandestine efforts by foreign governments to manipulate American politics and in the weeks before the 2020 election it raised concerns that reports about Hunter Biden — especially those concerning a laptop that he left behind at a computer repair shop — may have been influenced by a Russian disinformation campaign. From the outset, the case against them was a particularly bitter one, embodying a battle that has raged for nearly two years between the F.B.I.’s current leadership and the scores of agents who have been purged from the bureau because of their supposed disloyalty to Mr. Trump. That rancor was on full display in court on Monday as several former F.B.I. agents — some fired by the bureau’s director, Kash Patel — showed up to cheer the dismissal of the case. Among those in the gallery were Brian Driscoll, the former acting director of the F.B.I.; Dave Sundberg, the former agent in charge of the bureau’s Washington field office; and Steven Jensen, another longtime F.B.I. leader. Ms. Floris and Mr. Benavides were charged in a complaint last month with making false statements during testimony they gave in 2023 to the House Judiciary Committee about the roles they had played in the bureau’s contentious investigations of the younger Mr. Biden and his laptop. But during his speech, Judge Faruqui dismantled almost every aspect of the government’s case. He pointed out that most of the false statements the two defendants were charged with making were not actually false, that none of the false statements were made knowingly and that none of them had any material effect on the congressional investigation which they were called upon to assist. “That is not probable cause,” he said over and over. Ms. Floris’s legal team hailed the dismissal of the case in a statement on Monday. “The charges brought under the clearly discredited authority of the Department of Justice should never have been brought in the first place,” the statement said. “And while Nikki should never have had to endure this disgraceful public attack, we hope the courts continue to be a refuge for all citizens unlawfully targeted by the Trump administration.” In a statement, lawyers for Mr. Benavides denounced the government’s efforts: “The government’s attempt to tarnish his distinguished reputation for a political headline ahead of the midterm elections is inexcusable.” The statement added, “The government should heed the judge’s decision and drop this case immediately.” Judge Faruqui was allowed to weigh in on the viability of the case because prosecutors chose to charge Ms. Floris and Mr. Benavides through a criminal complaint, not an indictment. Complaints require a judge to make a finding of probable cause whereas indictments require only a majority vote by a panel of grand jurors and do not require a judge’s approval. But federal prosecutors in Washington have failed so often over the past two years to secure indictments from grand juries that they have grown wary of the panels — especially in politicized cases involving Mr. Trump’s opponents. While their complaint against Ms. Floris and Mr. Benavides is dead, prosecutors could try to resuscitate the charges by asking a grand jury to approve them. Judge Faruqui, who once worked as a prosecutor in the office that brought the charges, said it was clear to him that his former colleagues were worried about taking this case in particular to the grand jury given how often they had failed to obtain indictments. “It is self-evident that the U.S. attorney’s office is avoiding taking this case to the grand jury,” he said, “and that is understandable given their poor record there lately, but it is also unbelievable.” The judge left almost no part of the government’s efforts to prosecute Ms. Floris and Mr. Benavides unscathed. He pointed to its politicized origins , saying that Mr. Patel had personally assigned the inquiry to the F.B.I.’s Kansas City field office one day after Mr. Trump, during a prime-time address, criticized bureau intelligence officials for supposedly suppressing evidence that China had interfered in the 2020 election. Mr. Patel went so far as to specify the charges — conspiracy and obstruction — he wanted the agents in Kansas City to investigate. But when the agents failed to find any evidence to support those allegations, they quickly pivoted to examining the congressional testimony Ms. Floris and Mr. Benavides had given the House committee and comparing it to hundreds of thousands of internal F.B.I. communications looking for discrepancies. Judge Faruqui noted that one of the agents assigned to the case had testified last week that the investigation was widely viewed inside the Kansas City office as a “witch hunt.” The judge also said that the case had been conducted so hurriedly that the original complaint was riddled with factual errors. The judge expressed incredulity that an investigation personally ordered by the president and directly overseen by the F.B.I.’s director — who often checked in with the case agents by video conference — could have been handled in such a slipshod manner. “It’s preposterous,” he said, “but not illogical given the timeline.” That timeline was directly connected to the midterm elections, Judge Faruqui said, adding that he could find no other reason the charges were brought in a rush last month other than to make a splash before voters went to the polls. “There was simply no other event on the calendar except one — the midterms,” he said. “I will not bury my head in the sand and pretend that I cannot read a calendar.” In a moment of levity, Judge Faruqui said he would never have expected to still be discussing Hunter Biden and his laptop in late 2026, adding that the subject was clearly an obsession for Mr. Trump and his congressional allies.
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