WASHINGTON – Former FBI official Nikki Floris broke down in tears outside a federal courtroom Tuesday during a preliminary hearing on charges that she and another ex-bureau official lied to Congress about burying the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Floris was seen weeping in a courthouse hallway during a break in the probable cause hearing in the district court for Washington, DC.
She and fellow former FBI official, Bradley Benavides, self-surrendered last week and face up to five years in prison if convicted of lying to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 about their involvement in discrediting stories about the troubled first son.
US Magistrate Zia Faruqui presided over the hearing, which aimed to determine whether the Justice Department had enough evidence to move forward with the prosecution of Floris and Benavides, both of whom served on the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) when they allegedly made false statements to the House panel.
Faruqui did not make a ruling in the case after a full day of testimony.
In a blow to the DOJ, the judge, however, struck down a superseding complaint filed in the middle of the night against the duo.
The amended complaint sought to add a new obstruction charge against the two former officials, but the DOJ did not obtain a sign-off from a judge to do so.
“Why today upend the entire history of how we charge cases?” Faruqui said, arguing that prosecutors were behaving as if they were “afraid” the jurist was “not going to find probable cause.”
Prosecutors, citing internal FBI messages, emails and testimony from bureau employees, allege that Floris and Benavides frequently discussed Hunter Biden and his laptop in the lead-up to the 2020 election – including by assisting with press inquiries after The Post’s bombshell Oct. 14, 2020 story on Biden’s laptop emails, peddling the false narrative that the laptop was Russian disinformation.
Floris testified to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 that she did not have any knowledge about the laptop. Benavides claimed he first learned about the laptop on Wikipedia.
FBI Special Agent Bryan Witt, a government witness, took the stand during Tuesday’s hearing and expressed disbelief that Benavides wouldn’t have remembered his communications about the laptop prior to the House Judiciary Committee hearing.
“It’d be common sense to remember that stuff,” Witt said as he was being cross-examined by Benavides attorney, Ron Safer.
Witt said Benavides’ testimony to the House panel about how he learned about the laptop contradicted “tangible” evidence, such as chat logs and direct message transcripts.
The government witness, however, ultimately acknowledged that he did not have direct evidence that Benavides’ claim was intentionally false.
Meanwhile, Floris’ attorney, Margaret Donovan, tried to get Witt to characterize the investigation into her client as a “witch hunt.”
Donovan noted President Trump alluded to Floris and Benavides in a speech the night before Witt was assigned to the case, and said both were mentioned by name in a letter from the president directing the FBI to open an investigation into the matter.
Witt acknowledged he was “concerned [the investigation] would be viewed as political” but declined to call it a “witch hunt.”
The special agent agreed with Donovan that the assignment he received from FBI Director Kash Patel was “unusual,” but was adamant he was instructed to “investigate potential crimes,” and not told that a crime had necessarily occurred and that they were to investigate that crime specifically.
The hearing is slated to continue on Wednesday.
