On Monday, a federal magistrate judge dismissed the criminal complaint TOLL Two former top FBI counterintelligence officials lied to Congress about their roles in the FBI’s Hunter Biden investigation, saying the politically charged case lacked evidence and appeared to be tied to the timing of the midterm elections.
In a scathing hour-long oral ruling, Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui chastised the Justice Department and FBI for what they considered a “sloppy” case. lack any possible cause There is evidence that Nikki Flores or Bradley Benavidez committed a crime.
“No motive, no direct evidence, I have nothing,” he said. “Not close. Nothing.”
“I am deeply disturbed by what happened in this case,” Faruqui said. “What happened here can only be described as weaponization.”
Even though the complaint is dismissed, the Justice Department can still appeal Farooqui’s ruling to the chief judge or seek a grand jury indictment.
CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department, FBI and DCUS Attorney’s Office for comment.
Flores is a former senior intelligence analyst in the FBI’s Washington field office, and Benavidez is a former deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. The two hugged outside the court after the verdict was announced, with Flores weeping with relief.
They were flanked by numerous former senior Justice Department and FBI officials who came to support them, including former FBI acting director Brian Driscoll and former FBI Washington field office chief Steve Jensen.
“This case should never have been filed,” Margaret Donovan, one of Flores’ attorneys, said in a statement to reporters outside the courthouse. “This was a slapdash complaint, spaghetti on the wall, a Hunter Biden conspiracy fever dream. But the facts still matter in court.”
The criminal case against Flores and Benavidez has been highly unusual since it first came to light earlier this month.
Prosecutors charged the pair in a criminal complaint, which is typically reserved for felony cases that pose an imminent threat to public safety or national security. Typically, prosecutors obtain a grand jury indictment before filing charges.
Just after midnight on the first day of court hearings last Tuesday, prosecutors used an unsigned and unsworn superseding indictment to try to add new charges of obstruction of Congress — an approach the magistrate said was inappropriate and unheard of.
Faruqui strikes out A superseding complaint on the record alleges a lack of proper judicial review. But he allowed the hearing on the original complaint to proceed in a marathon evidentiary process, with three days of testimony, culminating in Monday’s extraordinary decision.
Over the course of three days, Bryan Witt, the FBI agent assigned to help investigate the matter, candidly admitted to the court that the case was handled differently than any other in his career.
He testified that the center was opened at the request of FBI Director Kash Patel, one day after President Donald Trump gave a televised address in July in which he accused intelligence officials of a cover-up to cover up Chinese interference in the United States. 2020 election and ordered the Justice Department to prosecute. Throughout the investigation, senior officials, including the FBI deputy director and Patel himself, checked in on progress.
Witt also acknowledged that he was concerned it might be viewed as a political act, while others in the FBI’s Kansas City office were worried it was a witch hunt.
Faruqui, a former federal prosecutor himself, at one point quoted loudly from the Justice Department Manual, which states that prosecutors should not take overt investigative or prosecutorial steps intended to influence or influence the outcome of an election.
“Why should we charge in October 2026?” he asked loudly, noting that he was not worried about the imminent expiration of the statute of limitations.
“There are absolutely no other events on the calendar other than the midterm elections,” he said. He added that he refused to bury his head in the sand and pretend timing wasn’t an issue.
“I wouldn’t lobotomize myself in this way,” he added.
The case against Flores and Benavidez hinges on testimony they gave to the House Judiciary Committee in July and September 2023.
In particular, it focused on an FBI Foreign Influence Task Force counterintelligence operation called “Round River,” which prosecutors said was focused on gathering “informants who produced derogatory reports about Hunter Biden and others, labeling them as Russian disinformation.”
The complaint states that Flores served as deputy assistant director of FITF from mid-2019 to mid-2022, and Benavidez served as section chief from mid-2019 to the 2020 election.
While in these roles, Flores and Benavidez provided defense briefs to Senators Charles Grassley and Ron Johnson in August 2020, ultimately leading to the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaing both men to testify nearly three years later.
During the three-day case trial, insufficient evidence and insufficient investigation were exposed.
To prove probable cause in a false statement case, prosecutors must prove that the defendant made the false statements, that they did so knowingly and intentionally, and that the statements were material.
Faruqui on Monday examined the three elements of the crime one by one and found that the government failed to meet each threshold.
He compared and contrasted the government’s complaint with previous false statement cases that met elements of the crime, juxtaposing cases against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
“It’s clear to me that there was a purpose in rushing the investigation. These were rushed accusations – that’s a problem,” he said.
For example, Witt acknowledged in his testimony that the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee refused to allow FBI agents to interview congressional staffers who attended the testimony of Flores and Benavidez — a critical step needed to determine the significance of the case.
Ultimately the only person he was allowed to talk to was Steve Castor, general counsel for House Judiciary Republicans, who acknowledged that he had not witnessed Benavidez’s testimony or reviewed the transcript. Witt did not speak to anyone on behalf of Democrats on the committee.
Career prosecutors later realized this potentially fatal mistake and tried to raise the issue before the case was prosecuted. Carlton Davis, a political appointee and special counsel to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, acknowledged the mistake in a recording released by the government to defense attorneys.
“I have a problem here,” Faruqui quoted Davis as saying. “I realized this is our thing.”
Faruqui also pointed out that the original charging document contained numerous errors compared to the alternative version that he later dismissed, and even Witt himself made misstatements on the witness stand, which he noted did not constitute a crime because he believed Witt did not intend to lie.
He publicly pondered why the government failed to stress-test cases before charging them, likening the three-day hearing to the equivalent of an indictment review.
He said the issues were not being resolved privately within the Justice Department but “in open court for the world to see.”
He also lamented the possible collateral consequences of the case, noting that it was effectively “marketing material” to discourage people from joining the ranks of the FBI and would have a “chilling effect” on Congress’s ability to accept people’s testimony. In the future, he said, Congress can expect more people to defend the Fifth Amendment and be prevented from voluntarily appearing in court like Flores and Benavidez did.
Most importantly, he predicted the case would erode confidence in the Justice Department and said he felt sorry not only for the defendants but also for the career prosecutors and agents who were forced to participate.
“The case was dismissed,” he said. “I’m sorry you went through this.”