Ex-FBI official weeps as she appears in court to face charges of lying to Congress about Hunter Biden laptop
WASHINGTON – Former FBI official Nikki Floris broke down in tears outside a federal courtroom Tuesday during a preliminary hearing on charges that she and another ex-bureau official lied to Congress about burying the Hunter Biden laptop story. Floris was seen weeping in a courthouse hallway during a break in the probable cause hearing in the district court for Washington, DC. She and fellow former FBI official, Bradley Benavides, self-surrendered last week and face up to five years in prison if convicted of lying to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 about their involvement in discrediting stories about the troubled first son. US Magistrate Zia Faruqui presided over the hearing, which aimed to determine whether the Justice Department had enough evidence to move forward with the prosecution of Floris and Benavides, both of whom served on the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) when they allegedly made false statements to the House panel. Faruqui did not make a ruling in the case after a full day of testimony. In a blow to the DOJ, the judge, however, struck down a superseding complaint filed in the middle of the night against the duo. The amended complaint sought to add a new obstruction charge against the two former officials, but the DOJ did not obtain a sign-off from a judge to do so. “Why today upend the entire history of how we charge cases?” Faruqui said, arguing that prosecutors were behaving as if they were “afraid” the jurist was “not going to find probable cause.”Prosecutors, citing internal FBI messages, emails and testimony from bureau employees, allege that Floris and Benavides frequently discussed Hunter Biden and his laptop in the lead-up to the 2020 election – including by assisting with press inquiries after The Post’s bombshell Oct.14, 2020 story on Biden’s laptop emails, peddling the false narrative that the laptop was Russian disinformation. Floris testified to the House Judiciary Committee in ...