Judge tosses obstruction bid after DOJ rushes overnight filing against former FBI officials
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A Washington magistrate judge rejected a hurried overnight obstruction allegation against former FBI employees Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, sharply criticizing the Justice Department’s sloppy and highly unconventional filing process.
A federal magistrate judge in Washington dismissed an obstruction charge that had been tacked onto a superseding criminal complaint against former FBI officials Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides. The judge said prosecutors had invented a “new category of charging” while ignoring standard procedures, pointing out that the complaint was filed overnight, unsigned, and unsworn.
Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui turned down the request to add the charge, saying the Justice Department had not followed the practice used in “every other case in the history of this district.” Although he did not accuse the prosecutors of bad faith, he warned that “this system is being misused by people of higher levels,” and added, “Everything is a sideshow on top of a sideshow.”
“In the middle of the night, the government filed an unsigned and unsworn complaint attempting to fix the issues with their original charge … and adding a new charge just as meritless as the first one,” Floris’ attorneys said, calling the move unprecedented in their combined decades of DOJ service.
Prosecutor John Borchert conceded that the filing method “has never been done before,” while U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro told reporters the decision to add a charge was up to the judge.
An FBI special agent testified that the investigation into Floris and Benavides began after a directive from FBI Director Kash Patel and said he feared the case could be seen as political. The hearing is set to continue on Wednesday.