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Justice Department ramps up pressure, files new obstruction charges against former FBI officials linked to Hunter Biden case

Federal prosecutors expanded the indictment against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides hours before their court appearance, accusing them of attempting to obstruct congressional investigations into the cover-up involving the former president's son's computer.

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Andrés Ignacio Henríquez
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Andrés Ignacio Henríquez

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3 minutes read

The Department of Justice filed a superseding criminal complaint early Tuesday morning against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, two former senior counterintelligence officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Prosecutors added charges of obstructing regulatory and legislative proceedings to the previous charges of giving false testimony before Congress regarding their actions in the investigations involving Hunter Biden.

The motion was filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., just before the preliminary hearing in which the defendants' defense team will question key government witnesses to determine whether there is probable cause to indict them.

Floris served as deputy assistant director of the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) from 2019 to 2022, while Benavides served as section chief during the 2020 election campaign.

According to court documents disclosed by CBS News, the new charges allege that both former officials "knowingly and willfully provided materially false statements to the Committee about their respective awareness of and involvement in the FBI's investigations into Hunter Biden, and thereby corruptly obstructed, and impeded and endeavored to influence, obstruct, and impede the due proper administration of the law."

The central allegation revolves around Operation "Round River," a counterintelligence initiative carried out by the FITF prior to the 2020 election. The unit's objective was to gather confidential information about Hunter Biden's business dealings in order to preliminarily classify any damaging reports as "Russian disinformation."

Prosecutors allege that both Floris and Benavides systematically lied during their sworn testimony on July 19 and September 28, 2023, respectively, with the deliberate purpose of "minimizing or concealing FITF's engagement with, and communications about, the Hunter Biden investigations and to impede the Congressional investigation."

Response from defense's legal team

In response to the sudden move by the prosecution, Nikki Floris' legal team issued a strongly worded statement questioning the court's conduct in filing an unsigned and unaffirmed document late at night.

"In our combined decades of DOJ service, we have never seen or even heard of something like this being filed," the defense attorneys stated.

"That's because the public lodging of criminal charges must be authorized by the grand jury, a judge, or the defendant herself. Here, the government has taken that power for itself in a desperate attempt to delay our client's right to challenge the charges in court."

The hearing will take place in the District of Columbia amid public scrutiny of the operational role played by intelligence agencies in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election.

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