Two former senior FBI officials were taken into custody Friday after being charged with making false statements to Congress about their roles in the FBI’s investigations into Hunter Biden.
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Nikki Cole Floris, 46, and Bradley Benavides, 56, both face one count of making false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2).
The charges stem from their 2023 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in which they allegedly denied their involvement in the FBI’s Hunter Biden investigations, despite evidence to the contrary.
The FBI’s affidavit alleges the pair were “actively involved” in the Hunter Biden investigations—which began in 2019 over tax and money-laundering matters but ended up being neutralized by their own secret working group.
“Lying to Congress by senior FBI officials strikes at the heart of our system,” FBI Director Kash Patel stated on Friday. “No one is above the law.”
“This is a huge move for accountability,” said former assistant attorney general Jeff Clark, now vice president for litigation at the Oversight Project. “Nikki Floris admitted she was running a shadow government to thwart the President of the United States.”
Internal FBI Chat logs released in July revealed how agents discussed withholding an intelligence report from the Presidential Daily Briefing in 2020.
“I’m basically running a shadow government across the FBI at this point,” said Floris at the time.
According to the Department of Justice, Benavides told the Judiciary Committee he learned of the investigation only from Wikipedia, but the government alleges he regularly discussed the Hunter Biden laptop case with FBI colleagues in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
Floris and Benavides were top leaders of the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), which oversaw FBI efforts to counter foreign election interference during the 2020 race.
Floris denied any FITF discussions on Hunter Biden, but the Justice Department said emails, contemporaneous communications, and witness accounts contradicted her statements.
The task force has since been dissolved.
FBI Baltimore obtained the explosive contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop on December 9, 2019, from a computer repair shop in Delaware where Hunter Biden had left it and searched it as part of its investigations.
The Bureau proceeded to suppress information about the salacious laptop for the entire 2020 election year as Democrats and their media allies portrayed the scandal as “Russian disinformation.”
According to the affidavit, the FITF informally formed a group of analysts to work on a secret project later known as “Round River.”
The White House Government Transparency Task Force released declassified documents back in August revealing how Round River operation was formed to neutralize the politically devastating Biden family corruption scandal during the 2020 election.
The analysts were tasked with gathering derogatory information reported by confidential human resources on Joe Biden’s corruption and other Ukraine related information and to red flag the info as “Russian disinformation.”
The topics targeted by FBI analysts included Burisma, Hunter Biden, and Ukraine meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
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The FBI operation divided the characters involved in Biden’s corruption scandals into two categories, those complicit in the scandals, and those exposing them. The operation sought to defend complicit Democrats and discredit Republican journalists and politicians as conduits of “Russian disinformation.”
A long list of Democrats, including Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, George Soros and others, were portrayed as victims who were “targets” of Russian disinformation.
Conservatives like Bill Barr, Mike Pompeo, Chuck Grassley, Ron Johnson, Jim Jordan, Fox News, Greg Jarrett and John Solomon, meanwhile, were branded “conduits” of Russian disinformation.
“Allegedly lying to Congress on investigations regarding the 2020 election is blatant corruption and weaponization,” stated Attorney General Todd Blanche on X. “Anyone entrusted with public office has a duty to serve with honesty and integrity including federal law enforcement officials, and those who abuse that public trust will be held accountable. No one is above the law.”
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui has ordered a preliminary hearing to review probable cause, CBS News reported.
Both defendants have reportedly pleaded not guilty and are seeking expedited proceedings.
Update:
Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) disclosed on X Friday that Floris and Benavides are the two FBI officials who gave him and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) “an unsolicited briefing” in August 2020, before someone leaked it to the media to smear them.
“There is much more to this story and more players involved. I certainly hope the FBI and the Justice Dept. use these charges to extract and expose the whole truth,” Johnson stated.
The briefing concerned foreign “disinformation,” which Grassley later said was irrelevant to their investigation. Details from the briefing were immediately leaked to the Washington Post, which used the info to smear their investigation into the Biden crime family.
The Post suggested that Johnson had ignored FBI warnings and thus may have been manipulated by the Kremlin.
After the briefing, Johnson and Grassley sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding an explanation, and never received an answer.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley also released the following statement Friday afternoon regarding the arrests:
“These two unelected bureaucrats used the power of government to smear my and Sen. Ron Johnson’s
constitutional oversight and distract from inconvenient truths that weaponized bureaucrats and the Biden administration didn’t want you to know.
For years, Congress and the American people were fed lies from federal law enforcement, the Intelligence Community and the liberal media to protect the Bidens at all costs – all while Jack Smith burned up taxpayer dollars attempting to throw President Trump in prison.
Today, we’re seeing accountability efforts in action. I appreciate the Department of Justice and the FBI’s work to root out government corruption and embrace transparency. At long last, Americans can see all the facts and evidence for themselves.”
