FBI agent testifies Patel ordered investigation and requested updates
Defense lawyers for two former FBI counterintelligence officials urged U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui on Thursday to dismiss the criminal complaint charging them with making false statements to Congress about Hunter Biden, describing the case as an overtly political prosecution aimed at placating President Donald Trump. Faruqui did not rule immediately after the days-long hearing, and a key decision looms next week.
A dismissal would not prevent the Justice Department from attempting to obtain an indictment, but that path could be difficult. Grand juries in the nation’s capital have repeatedly refused to approve charges in politically sensitive cases, and even if the judge sustains the complaint, prosecutors would presumably still need to secure a grand jury indictment for the case to proceed.
The hearing included testimony that the investigation was ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel and opened shortly after a primetime election security speech by Trump in which he rehashed long-running grievances about his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. “A political prosecution is always going to make for a shaky foundation for a criminal case,” said Mary Dohrmann, a lawyer for Floris.
The complaint accuses Floris and Bradley Benavides of falsely downplaying their knowledge of a laptop that the Justice Department says Hunter Biden dropped off at a computer repair shop in 2019. The laptop’s existence was publicized a year later in a revelation that shook the final weeks of the presidential race.
Both officials led a since-disbanded FBI task force set up to police foreign influence in elections. The alleged false statements came during 2023 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee as the Republican-led panel conducted its own investigation into Hunter Biden. The complaint alleges that although the two officials downplayed their knowledge of the laptop, they participated in numerous discussions about it.
Justice Department prosecutor James Kirkpatrick argued Thursday that the officials had a motive to minimize their knowledge of Hunter Biden and the laptop because Hunter Biden’s father was president at the time of the questioning. Kirkpatrick suggested the pair may have been wary of discussing the matter because, he said, the task force never publicly corrected a narrative from some Democrats and former intelligence officials that the laptop was connected to Russian disinformation rather than being authentic.
“At the end of the day, the FITF got it wrong,” Kirkpatrick said, referring to the task force by its acronym. “They didn’t quash the narrative that this laptop was the product of Russian disinformation. They didn’t correct the record.”
Defense lawyers insisted that their clients did not lie and had no incentive to do so, and that any potentially false statement was unintentional and the product of vague questioning or a faulty memory. “There is absolutely zero proof that Mr. Benavides knew and remembered and misled. They have to prove that the statements were made intentionally and not the result of confusion, mistake, faulty or other innocent reasons,” said Ron Safer, a lawyer for Benavides.
Safer disputed the prosecution’s suggestion of a motive, arguing that the Foreign Influence Task Force — which the Trump administration shuttered last year — never made an assessment on the authenticity of the laptop.
The Justice Department filed the case more than a week before the midterm elections using an unusual mechanism: a criminal complaint, a tool more often used when officials need to swiftly take someone into custody, rather than a grand jury indictment.
The hearing featured testimony from FBI Special Agent Bryan Witt, who investigated the case. Witt said he regarded it as a “huge distraction” from his other work and said he appreciated that it could be seen as political. He testified that Patel mandated the investigation and took an unusual interest in it, requesting and receiving regular updates about it.
Witt also testified that the FBI was directed to investigate Floris after a July primetime speech in which Trump amplified debunked theories about his 2020 election loss. Among the grievances the White House raised at the time was a disputed FBI intelligence report about an alleged effort by China to influence the election through fraudulent driver’s licenses. Floris has long drawn attention for her role in ordering the report withdrawn because the intelligence it relied on had not been properly vetted.