Judge berates DOJ attorney in court over new charge filed against former FBI officials

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Tuesday dismissed a new charge against a pair of former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress, finding the Justice Department took novel — and improper — steps to announce the allegation.Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui said at a hearing that prosecutors created “their own category of charging” with the new complaint they tried to bring against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, who were initially charged last week with making false statements to Congress about their level of knowledge about an investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop.Government attorneys added an obstruction charge in a superseding criminal complaint that was filed overnight but not signed by any law enforcement officer or judge. Prosecutor John Borchert of the U.S. attorney’s office for Washington, D.C., acknowledged in court Tuesday that “this has never been done before” but suggested the complaint could be signed during the hearing.Faruqui denied the request and struck the new complaint, questioning why the Justice Department hadn’t followed what it has done in “every other case in the history of this district.”He said that while he doesn’t doubt that the prosecution acted in good faith, he’s concerned that “this system is being misused by people of higher levels.”“Everything is a sideshow on top of a sideshow” in this case, Faruqui said.Mary Dohrmann, Floris’ lawyer, said there is mounting evidence that the case is a “political football,” not a case about “the law or the facts.”That came before an FBI agent who investigated the case against Floris and Benavides testified Tuesday that he’d had concerns it would be viewed as “political.”Flores and Benavides have been targets of withering criticism from allies of President Donald Trump. Both were involved with election security issues around the 2020 contest, which Trump falsely claims was rigged. After they were arrested last week, Trump said, “I heard they were bad people.”The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, has failed to secure convictions against many of President Donald Trump's perceived foes.Andrew Harnik / GettyFloris’ legal team has said the case was brought to “score political points,” and in a statement Tuesday it called the latest filing “outrageous government conduct against a decorated public servant.”“In the middle of the night, the government filed an unsigned and unsworn complaint attempting to fix the issues with their original charge against Ms. Floris and adding a new charge just as meritless as the first one. In our combined decades of DOJ service, we have never seen or even heard of something like this being filed,” her attorneys said.Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, shrugged off questions about the new complaint to reporters before the judge tossed it.“It’s up to Judge Faruqui as to whether or not he wants to sign that. Look, we’ve got a prior complaint that was signed by another magistrate, or another judge, I should say. We have the ability today to add a charge. If the judge doesn’t want to add the charge, that’s up to the judge,” Pirro said.Nikki Floris testifying at a congressional hearing in 2019.Susan Walsh / APAfter Faruqui tossed out the new complaint, the hearing in the original one continued, with FBI Special Agent Bryan Witt testifying that the bureau’s investigation started after FBI Director Kash Patel sent a letter directing the Kansas City, Missouri, office to look into certain people, including Floris.Witt said he felt the task was a “huge distraction” from a big public corruption case he was involved with at the time, adding, “I had concerns that this would be viewed as political.”Witt said that the investigation was “prioritized” and that they were “told to work it aggressively.” Asked who was pushing him, he mentioned there were check-ins from high-level officials, including Patel and an FBI deputy director. Asked whether Patel pressed him, he said he didn’t.The hearing is scheduled to continue Wednesday.