Two former senior FBI officials who helped run the bureau’s election-security task force in 2020 surrendered Friday morning in Washington on federal charges of lying to Congress about their roles in the FBI’s Hunter Biden investigations, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
Nikki Cole Floris, 46, of Alexandria, Virginia, and Bradley Benavides, 56, of Aiken, South Carolina, were each charged by criminal complaint with one count of making false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office said in a press release. Floris led the now-dissolved Foreign Influence Task Force as a deputy assistant director from mid-2019 to mid-2022, and Benavides served as its section chief through the 2020 election, according to the release.
This morning, two former senior FBI officials, Nikki Floris, 46, and Bradley Benavides, 56, surrendered on arrest warrants after being charged with lying to Congress about their roles on the Foreign Influence Task Force during the 2020 election. Floris and Benavides allegedly…
— US Attorney Pirro (@USAttyPirro) October 23, 2026
Pirro said in a post on X that the pair surrendered on arrest warrants after being charged over their roles on the Foreign Influence Task Force, the unit that led the FBI’s work against foreign election interference ahead of the 2020 vote.
What prosecutors allege
Both officials sat for interviews with the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 and were warned that lying to Congress is a crime, according to the Justice Department. Prosecutors say Floris told the committee she was involved in no discussions about Hunter Biden while at the task force, and that Benavides testified he only learned the FBI had Hunter Biden’s laptop from reading a Wikipedia article in 2023.
The Justice Department said an affidavit filed with the complaint cites documents, contemporaneous communications and witness accounts that contradict that testimony. According to the release, evidence shows Floris routinely discussed the FBI’s Hunter Biden investigations for more than a year, and Benavides regularly discussed the laptop with FBI officials in the run-up to the 2020 election. CBS News reported that the statement of facts dates Floris’s alleged false statements to July 19, 2023, and Benavides’s to Sept. 28, 2023.
FBI Director Kash Patel said in the Justice Department release that one of the two is “on record privately claiming to be ‘running a shadow government’ during the 2020 election.” Patel added, “As we’ve said repeatedly: weaponization will never be tolerated at this FBI.”
Why it matters
The New York Post first reported on the laptop weeks before the 2020 election, and Republicans have long accused the FBI of mishandling both the laptop and the investigations into the president’s son, NPR noted.
The defense pushes back
Both defendants appeared Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui, according to NPR and The Associated Press. NPR reported that Faruqui called the decision to charge the pair by complaint for conduct that is “quite old” unusual and noted their long records of public service. Ron Safer, an attorney for Benavides, told the court “the government has had the information about this for years” and asked for a preliminary hearing as soon as possible, CBS News reported.
The two are due back in court for a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, NPR reported. Because they were charged by complaint, prosecutors have not yet obtained a grand jury indictment. As the Justice Department noted, charges in a complaint are allegations, and both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
Sources
- U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. press release
- Jeanine Pirro on X
- Kash Patel on X
- NPR
- CBS News
- The Associated Press
Sources cited
Sources
- Original post: US Attorney Pirro (@USAttyPirro) on X, Oct 23, 2026
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