Two Former FBI Officials Charged With Lying to Congress Over Hunter Biden Laptop Probe
Two former FBI officials, Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, have been charged with lying to Congress in connection with a 2020 investigation into a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden.
The two surrendered on arrest warrants on Friday morning, October 23, 2026, and made their first court appearance that day in Washington, DC. Jeanine Pirro was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia at the time.
According to a criminal complaint, a charging document filed in court, Floris and Benavides had overseen the FBI's Foreign Intelligence Task Force when the laptop was found. The unit focuses on foreign interference in U.S. elections. Both testified to Congress that the task force was not involved in the laptop investigation. Federal prosecutors allege that those statements contradicted messages sent during the same period.
Benavides also testified that he only learned the FBI had possession of the laptop from reading a Wikipedia article in 2023, according to the Justice Department.
The laptop first came to public attention in October 2020, weeks before the presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It had been dropped off at a computer repair shop in Delaware and apparently abandoned by Hunter Biden. The New York Post first reported on its contents, based on information provided to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. The FBI seized the laptop and later verified that the device and its contents were authentic. The contents included messages about Hunter Biden's foreign business ties and explicit photographs of his drug use. The laptop was later used to support federal gun and tax evasion charges against Hunter Biden.
The Foreign Intelligence Task Force was disbanded when Trump took office for a second time in January 2025.
Lawyers for Floris and Benavides have accused the Justice Department of filing the charges to revive the laptop controversy days before the November 3 midterm vote. A lawyer for Floris said she served as an FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years.
FBI Director Kash Patel said that lying to Congress by senior FBI officials strikes at the heart of the U.S. system and that no one is above the law.
