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A federal magistrate judge in Washington on Monday, November 2, 2026, dismissed the criminal complaint against two former FBI officials accused of making false statements to Congress about the bureau's investigations into Hunter Biden, ruling after an hourlong hearing that prosecutors had not shown probable cause that any crime had been committed.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui delivered the ruling from the bench against former officials Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, both of whom had held senior posts on the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force. In a scathing assessment, he described the investigation behind the charges as rushed and overtly political, dogged by critical mistakes, and said what had transpired "cannot be described as anything other than weaponization" of the Justice Department.
Faruqui pointed to the timing and handling of the case: the investigation was opened a day after a primetime speech by President Donald Trump revisiting his grievances over the 2020 election, and it was mandated and closely tracked by FBI Director Kash Patel. The charges arose from statements made to Congress in 2023, yet the Justice Department brought them only two weeks ago, in the run-up to Tuesday's midterm voting.
The complaint accused Floris and Benavides of misleading the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 about their knowledge of, and involvement in, FBI investigations touching Hunter Biden and his laptop, which the Justice Department says was dropped off at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019. Prosecutors said Benavides falsely claimed he learned through Wikipedia that the FBI possessed the laptop, and that Floris falsely claimed she had no knowledge of Hunter Biden being discussed at the task force. The case also cited a 2020 "defensive briefing" the two gave to Republican Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, which the senators have said was used to undermine their investigation into the Biden family and link it to Russian disinformation.
The road to dismissal was contentious. The charges were announced on October 23, 2026, and both defendants were arrested and released. Days later, Faruqui refused to accept a superseding complaint adding an obstruction charge that prosecutors had placed on the docket overnight without his approval, and an FBI agent who worked the case testified he had been concerned the investigation would be seen as political. Lawyers for Floris and Benavides had pressed for dismissal; counsel for Floris described her as a patriot who served nearly 20 years as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer.
The dismissal is a setback for the Justice Department, but it does not necessarily end the matter: the department may still have an opportunity to pursue a grand jury indictment against the two former officials.