Judge blocks rushed bid to pile new charges onto former FBI officials
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A Washington magistrate judge rejected prosecutors’ late-night attempt to tack obstruction charges onto two former FBI agents accused of making false statements to Congress about Hunter Biden-related investigations, criticizing the move as improper and saying the case should go to a grand jury.
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui on Tuesday refused to sign off on a superseding criminal complaint that prosecutors filed overnight against former FBI officials Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides. The new filing added obstruction and attempted obstruction of a congressional proceeding to the original allegation that the two made false statements to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 about investigations involving Hunter Biden.
"I am not going to bless it as a superseding complaint," Faruqui said, pointing out that prosecutors had not first secured a judge’s finding of probable cause before submitting the document.
The judge underscored that criminal complaints usually require a judge’s signature and are meant for fast-moving actions such as arrest warrants, while conduct alleged to have happened months earlier is ordinarily handled through a grand-jury indictment. He warned that the case should be presented to a grand jury, as standard procedure requires.
Prosecutors in the office of D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro filed the complaint hours before a scheduled preliminary hearing on the original charge. The filing included a typed signature block with Faruqui’s name but did not bear his personal signature.
Floris’s defense team condemned the filing in an emailed statement, calling it an unsigned, unsworn complaint submitted "in the middle of the night" and accusing the government of trying to delay the defendants’ ability to challenge the charges in court.
"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," the attorneys wrote.
The original complaint, made public last Friday, led to the arrest of Floris and Benavides, who were later released. Under federal rules, prosecutors must obtain an indictment within 30 days of an arrest or risk dismissal of the case.