Floris and Benavides face court over Hunter Biden laptop testimony

Two former FBI officials are scheduled to appear in federal court in Washington on Tuesday to answer criminal charges related to their testimony about Hunter Biden’s laptop. The defendants are Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, who served as leaders of the Foreign Influence Task Force.

The Justice Department announced the prosecution on Friday. The case accuses the pair of falsely denying their knowledge of the laptop and their involvement in internal agency discussions regarding it. Their defense attorneys have described the legal action as baseless and politically motivated.

Defense lawyers plan to challenge the procedural basis of the case at the preliminary hearing. They will point out that the former officials were charged through a criminal complaint signed by a magistrate judge. This method bypassed the standard process of a grand jury indictment. The defense will note that the Justice Department has had difficulty securing grand jury indictments in high-profile matters in the District of Columbia.

The investigation centers on a laptop that the Department of Justice says Hunter Biden abandoned at a computer repair shop in 2019. The New York Post reported in 2020 that it had obtained a hard drive from the device. The paper stated that former President Donald Trump’s ally Rudy Giuliani provided the drive. The publication reported on emails found on the computer that detailed some of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

The discovery of the laptop occurred while the Trump administration’s intelligence community assessed that Russia was trying to undermine Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. Former National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe stated there were no signs of Russian involvement with the laptop. The FBI investigated the younger Biden on gun and tax charges that resulted in felony convictions. President Joe Biden pardoned his son in late 2024.

Floris and Benavides led the task force established in the first Trump administration to monitor foreign influence campaigns. In August 2020, they briefed Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson. The senators were investigating Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine. News of the briefing leaked, leading the lawmakers to criticize the FBI for linking their scrutiny of the Biden family to Russian disinformation efforts.

The criminal complaint alleges that Floris and Benavides lied to lawmakers in 2023. They denied having contemporaneous knowledge of the laptop or participating in internal FBI conversations about it. Their lawyers have denied any allegations of wrongdoing. The Foreign Influence Task Force was disbanded in February 2025 by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.