Two former senior FBI officials surrendered on charges they lied to Congress about Hunter Biden investigations, with prosecutors citing records that undercut their denials before the 2020 election.

Nikki Cole Floris and Bradley Benavides turned themselves in Friday on arrest warrants after a criminal complaint accused each of one count of making false statements to lawmakers. The Daily Caller reported the pair appeared in Washington’s federal court and asked for a prompt hearing to contest the claims.

Floris, 46, of Alexandria, Virginia, led the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force as a deputy assistant director from mid-2019 through mid-2022. Benavides, 56, of Aiken, South Carolina, served as the task force’s section chief from mid-2019 through the 2020 election. Both told House investigators in 2023 that the unit stayed out of the bureau’s Hunter Biden work.

Prosecutors say the record shows otherwise. The complaint, filed October 20 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, points to emails, internal communications, and witness accounts that place the two in repeated discussions of the president’s son and his laptop.

Records clash with 2023 testimony

Benavides told House Judiciary Committee investigators he first learned of Hunter Biden’s laptop from a Wikipedia entry while preparing for his 2023 interview. The Justice Department says emails show he traded messages about the device with FBI colleagues in the weeks before the 2020 election and regularly discussed it with officials in the lead-up to that vote.

Breitbart noted the charges fall under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2) for false statements in a matter within the legislative branch’s jurisdiction. Documentary evidence and communications reportedly show the pair routinely discussed the probes and the laptop even as they denied knowledge years later.

Floris denied that the task force ever discussed the president’s son. Communications cited in the filing put her in a full year of exchanges on the topic, both inside the Foreign Influence Task Force and with others across the FBI.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro framed the case in blunt terms after the surrender.

"Lying to Congress by anyone strikes at the heart of our democratic system but when senior FBI agents lie to Congress believing they are above the law, it’s time to bring the hammer of justice down on them."

Pirro’s office added that the charges grow from an ongoing investigation into the now-dissolved task force.

Patel ties case to election-year role

FBI Director Kash Patel said both officials testified that the Foreign Influence Task Force had no part in the Hunter Biden investigations. He pointed to documentary evidence, contemporaneous communications, and witness accounts that contradict that testimony from July and September 2023.

The Washington Examiner reported Patel’s emphasis on those contradictions in the criminal complaint. Patel further stated that Floris is on record privately claiming she was “running a shadow government” during the 2020 election in her task-force role.

The unit was created to shield the 2020 election from foreign meddling. The FBI shut it down in February 2025. Patel linked the new case to broader cleanup work, noting the bureau had already dismantled the CR-15 squad accused of political weaponization against opponents, including President Trump.

Accountability for past FBI overreach has drawn sustained attention, including coverage of former task force chiefs facing Congress lies charges on related laptop work.

Fox News reported Patel’s separate statement that the FBI arrested the two former members of the dissolved task force over alleged 2023 lies on 2020 election-related investigations, and that weaponization will not be tolerated.

Defense calls charges political timing

Floris’s attorneys rejected the case in a statement provided to Fox News.

"Nikki Floris is a patriot. She served our nation as a dedicated FBI intelligence officer for nearly 20 years. Yet today, the DOJ has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts. It’s no coincidence the government is filing these nonsense charges now, years later, on the eve of an election."

No comparable public statement from Benavides appeared in the initial reporting. Both defendants requested a fast hearing after their court appearance.

Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson had earlier accused the officials of using a 2020 briefing about Russian disinformation to weaken their own inquiry into the Biden family’s foreign business dealings. The FBI later confirmed the laptop’s authenticity during Hunter Biden’s 2024 federal gun trial.

Parallel reporting has tracked task force leaders charged over the same laptop probe testimony as Congress pressed for answers.

The complaint itself does not spell out a motive. It rests on the gap between the 2023 sworn accounts and the internal trail of emails and conversations that prosecutors say ran for more than a year inside the task force.

Laptop narrative and public trust

In the final stretch before the 2020 vote, public debate over the laptop’s origins and contents was fierce. Officials later acknowledged the device was genuine. The new charges focus on whether two senior figures who helped run the bureau’s foreign-influence unit told Congress the truth about their own knowledge and involvement.

Pirro underscored the institutional stakes in her announcement.

"When senior officials entrusted with safeguarding our nation’s security choose deception over duty, they undermine the very institutions they swore to uphold. Today’s action makes clear that no one is above the law, and we will hold accountable all who obstruct the truth."

Questions of Biden-era decision-making continue to surface in other arenas, from private pardon discussions reported years later to high-profile political confrontations.

The Foreign Influence Task Force no longer exists. Its former leaders now face a criminal process that will test the strength of the documentary record against their earlier denials. Court filings so far give each defendant a single false-statements count. Further proceedings will determine whether the evidence meets the standard prosecutors claim.

Taxpayers expect the people who run sensitive election-security units to tell Congress the plain truth the first time. When the paper trail says otherwise, the only remedy left is the one now underway.