Original article can be found here.
(The Center Square) – Two senior Federal Bureau of Investigation officials were taken into federal custody Friday on charges of lying to Congress and criminally obstructing its investigation into the financial dealings of Hunter Biden, son of former president Joe Biden.
According to the FBI legal affidavit, Nikki Cole Floris of Alexandria, Virginia, and Bradley Benavides of Aiken, South Carolina, in 2023 “knowingly and willfully provided materially false information about their awareness of and involvement in the FBI’s investigations into Hunter Biden.”
“Lying to Congress by anyone strikes at the heart of our democratic system but when senior FBI agents lie to Congress believing they are above the law, it’s time to bring the hammer of justice down on them,” Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a Friday statement.
“When senior officials entrusted with safeguarding our nation’s security choose deception over duty, they undermine the very institutions they swore to uphold,” she added. “Today’s action makes clear that no one is above the law, and we will hold accountable all who obstruct the truth.”
Floris, 46, and Benavides, 56, both held leadership positions in 2019 on the now-dissolved Foreign Influence Task Force, which was established to combat foreign influence from Russia, especially in the 2020 presidential elections.
The FBI began investigating Hunter Biden in late 2018 for alleged bribe-taking, money laundering, and tax fraud, seizing his laptop in December 2019 (he ultimately pleaded guilty to nine federal tax offenses but was not charged with bribe-taking or money laundering).
House Judiciary Committee Republicans also launched an investigation in 2019, which Floris and Benavides are now accused of effectively obstructing.
Despite evidence appearing to show that Floris and Benavides “knew about and were actively involved in the FBI’s investigations of Hunter Biden,” both explicitly denied their involvement when directly questioned by U.S. lawmakers in 2023.
Floris, who participated in the FITF’s informal “Round River” project that closely followed the FBI’s Hunter Biden investigations, denied both participation in and knowledge of the project.
Along with Floris, Benavides “worked on the FBI’s internal and Congressional responses to reporting on the FBI’s receipt of Hunter Biden’s laptop,” the affidavit alleges, which contradicts his testimony to lawmakers that he only learned of the FBI seizing the laptop a couple of days before from a Wikipedia article.
Their false testimony to Congress, the FBI alleges, “materially affected the direction and outcome of the committee’s investigation,” since lawmakers would have otherwise “sought additional documents and testimony in furtherance of its investigation.”
Under U.S. law, Floris and Benavides are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
Original article
Comments