The Justice Department has added obstruction charges against two former senior FBI officials accused of misleading Congress about the bureau’s role in the Hunter Biden investigations, according to CBS News.
Federal prosecutors filed a superseding complaint early Tuesday against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, accusing them of obstructing a congressional proceeding and lying to lawmakers, CBS News reported. The filing came just hours before the pair were due in federal court in Washington, D.C., for a preliminary hearing, according to the outlet.
JUST IN: DOJ adds an obstruction count to its charges against former FBI officials Nicole Floris and Bradley Benavides.https://t.co/vwClZyYhYX pic.twitter.com/vkXsxSbvXh
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 27, 2026
Floris served as deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force from mid-2019 through mid-2022, while Benavides served as the task force’s section chief from mid-2019 through the 2020 election, CBS News reported.
What prosecutors allege
The new complaint alleges the two “knowingly and willfully provided materially false statements to the Committee about their respective awareness of and involvement in the FBI’s investigations into Hunter Biden,” according to CBS News. The charges center on testimony Floris gave a congressional committee on July 19, 2023, and Benavides gave on September 28, 2023, the outlet reported.
Prosecutors say the false statements were made “for the purpose of minimizing or concealing FITF’s engagement with, and communications about, the Hunter Biden investigations and to impede the Congressional investigation,” according to CBS News.
The complaint also focuses on a task force counterintelligence operation known as “Round River,” which CBS News reported was aimed at collecting derogatory informant reporting on, among other things, Hunter Biden, in order to flag that reporting as Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election.
How the case began
The pair were first charged last week. NBC News reported on October 23 that a court docket showed Floris and Benavides each facing one count of a rarely charged offense that can be difficult to prosecute.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said in a social media post that Floris and Benavides surrendered that Friday morning, according to NBC News. Pirro alleged the two lied about their roles in the Foreign Influence Task Force and “about their roles in the FBI’s Hunter Biden investigations,” the outlet reported.
Defense calls the filing ‘meritless’
Floris’s lawyers blasted Tuesday’s move. “In the middle of the night, the government filed an unsigned and unsworn complaint attempting to fix the issues with their original charge against Ms. Floris and adding a new charge just as meritless as the first one,” her legal team said in a statement to CBS News.
Her attorneys previously said in a statement reported by NBC News that the “DOJ has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts.” One of Benavides’s attorneys, Ronald S. Safer, called the charges a disgrace, according to NBC News.
CBS News noted the superseding complaint was unsigned and unsworn, and reported that defense attorneys were expected to question a government witness at Tuesday’s hearing to test whether prosecutors can show probable cause that a crime was committed.
Charges are allegations, and both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
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- Original post: Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) on X, Oct 27, 2026
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