Two FBI officials have been charged with lying to Congress after prosecutors said they hid their knowledge of Hunter Biden’s laptop when they testified to a House committee that was investigating the president’s son.
Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides were both part of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, which authorities said was involved in the bureau’s investigation into the laptop.
But they concealed their activities in their 2023 testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, with Mr. Benavides saying he learned of the laptop from Wikipedia and Ms. Floris saying she had no discussions about the laptop while she was at the task force, prosecutors said.
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The criminal complaint also identifies them as the two FBI officials who gave a controversial “defensive” briefing to two senior Republican senators in 2020. The senators have said those briefings were an attempt to discredit their work on Mr. Biden.
FBI Director Kash Patel said they were taken into custody Friday morning.
“One of these individuals is on record privately claiming to be ‘running a shadow government’ during the 2020 election,” he said. “As we’ve said repeatedly: weaponization will never be tolerated at this FBI.”
He had previously disbanded the task force.
The laptop became a source of endless embarrassment for President Biden.
His son left it for repairs but didn’t collect it, and it was turned over to the FBI, as well as leaked to Republicans ahead of the 2020 election. It included salacious details of Hunter Biden’s personal life, and tantalizing suggestions about his business dealings with foreigners.
News of the laptop became public late in the 2020 campaign, but Democratic operatives, including former high-ranking intelligence officials, claimed it was Russian disinformation, causing many news outlets not to report on it.
FBI and IRS agents involved in obtaining and working with the laptop in criminal investigations of Hunter Biden have since publicly verified its authenticity.
Ms. Floris and Mr. Benavides in the summer of 2020 also gave the defensive briefing to Sen. Charles E. Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson, who were probing Hunter Biden’s business dealings with Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm, where he appeared to flex his connections to his father.
The two senators have said the briefing lacked substance and appeared to be an attempt to discredit their own work. Indeed, news of the briefing leaked and “provided the Democrats and liberal media the vehicle to spread their false narrative that our work advanced Russian disinformation,” the senators said.
Ms. Floris and Mr. Benavides were called to testify to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 about their knowledge of the laptop and their work on the task force.
Ms. Floris testified at the time that she wasn’t familiar with the report the senators issued in 2020.
But investigators provided the court Friday with emails where she sent the report around to colleagues saying it “just dropped this am.” She also included a summary of the lengthy report for her colleagues.
She and Mr. Benavides were also involved in the FBI’s response after The New York Post broke news of the laptop in October 2020, according to documents investigators obtained.
But Mr. Benavides told the House committee he only knew of the Post report, and the FBI investigation into the laptop, “from the prep material” and perusing Wikipedia.
“You didn’t have that knowledge from your role in the FBI?” he was asked.
“Absolutely not,” he replied, later adding, “I do not have firsthand knowledge of that.”
Investigators said those statements interfered with Congress’s probe.
“Had Benavides been truthful about his involvement in the Hunter Biden investigations, the Committee would have sought additional documents and testimony in furtherance of its investigation,” FBI Special Agent Byron Militello said in the affidavit to support the arrests.
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