WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed new charges against two former FBI officials for lying to Congress, finding that the Justice Department took novel and inappropriate steps to announce the charges.
Magistrate Judge Zia M. Farooqui said during the hearing that prosecutors created “their own category of charges” in the new indictment they are seeking to bring against Nikki Flores and Bradley Benavidez. They were initially charged last week with making false statements to Congress about their knowledge of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation.
Government lawyers added obstruction of justice charges to a superseding criminal complaint that was filed overnight but was not signed by any law enforcement officials or judge. John Borchert, a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., acknowledged in court Tuesday that “this has never been done before,” but suggested the indictment could be signed during the hearing.
Faruqui rejected the request and filed a new complaint questioning why the Justice Department had not followed the lead in “all other cases in the history of the region.”
He said that while he did not doubt that prosecutors acted in good faith, he was concerned “that the system is being abused by those higher up.”
In this case, “it’s all juggling on top of juggling,” Faruqui said.
Flores’ attorney, Mary Dorman, said evidence was mounting that the case was a “political football” rather than one about “law or fact.”
This comes after an FBI agent investigating the cases of Flores and Benavidez testified Tuesday that he was worried it would be seen as “political.”
Flores and Benavidez have been the target of harsh criticism from allies of President Donald Trump. Both men dealt with election security issues during the 2020 campaign, which Trump falsely claimed was rigged. After their arrest last week, Trump said, “I heard they were bad people.”
Flores’ legal team said the case was filed to “score political points,” calling the latest filing “an outrageous act by the government against a decorated public servant” in a statement Tuesday.
“In the middle of the night, the government filed an unsigned, unsworn indictment that sought to address the original charges against Ms. Flores and added a new allegation that was as baseless as the first. In our decades of service to the Department of Justice, we have never seen or even heard of anything like it,” her attorneys said.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, dismissed reporters’ questions about the new complaint before the judge dismissed it.
“It depends on whether Judge Farooqui wants to sign it. Look, we had a complaint before that was signed by another magistrate or I should say another judge. We have the ability to add a charge today. If the judge doesn’t want to add charges, that’s up to the judge,” Pirro said.
The original hearing continued after Farooqui filed a new complaint and FBI Special Agent Brian Witt testified that the FBI investigation began after FBI Director Kash Patel sent a letter instructing the Kansas City, Missouri, office to investigate certain individuals, including Flores.
Witt said he felt the assignment was a “significant distraction from a large public corruption case he was involved in at the time,” adding, “I was concerned that this would be seen as political.”
Witt said the investigation was a “priority” and they were “informed to pursue it aggressively”. Asked who was pushing him, he cited high-level officials reporting in, including Patel and an FBI deputy director. Asked if Patel had pressured him, he said no.
The hearing is scheduled to continue on Wednesday.