Ex-FBI Task Force Chiefs Charged With Lying to Congress About Hunter Biden Probes

Written By TNT Staff, Posted on October 24, 2026

Featured photo: FBI headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, in Washington. Photo: Ajay Suresh, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Two former senior FBI officials who ran the bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force surrendered Friday. Each is charged with lying to Congress about the task force’s role in the Hunter Biden investigations.

Nikki Cole Floris, 46, of Alexandria, Virginia, and Bradley Benavides, 56, of Aiken, South Carolina, are each charged by criminal complaint with making false statements to the legislative branch under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced.

These are charges, not convictions. Both are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

Who they are

Floris was a deputy assistant director who led the task force, known as FITF, from mid-2019 to mid-2022. Benavides was its section chief from mid-2019 through the 2020 election. FITF led the FBI’s effort to protect that election from “foreign malign influence.” It has since been dissolved.

What they told Congress

In 2023 the House Judiciary Committee interviewed both of them about FITF’s role in the Hunter Biden investigations. Prosecutors say each was warned that lying to Congress is a crime.

Both testified that FITF had no role in those investigations. Floris told the committee she was involved in no discussions about Hunter Biden while at the task force. Benavides testified that he learned the FBI had Hunter Biden’s laptop only from “reading a Wikipedia article in 2023.”

What prosecutors allege

According to DOJ, the evidence shows Floris discussed the Hunter Biden investigations “routinely for more than a year,” both inside FITF and with others at the FBI. Benavides, prosecutors say, “regularly discussed the laptop with FBI officials in the leadup to the 2020 election.”

An affidavit supporting the complaint says “documentary evidence, contemporaneous communications, and witness accounts” contradict their testimony.

“One of these individuals is on record privately claiming to be ‘running a shadow government’ during the 2020 election,” FBI Director Kash Patel said. The release does not say which one.

Why it matters

The Hunter Biden laptop story was true. In the weeks before the 2020 election, it was waved off as possible foreign disinformation and throttled on social media. The FBI unit whose job was to warn about foreign influence was the same unit these two ran. If prosecutors are right, the officials who knew the most later told Congress they knew nothing.

“Lying to Congress by anyone strikes at the heart of our democratic system,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. Attorney General Todd Blanche said federal officials “cannot lie to Congress and get away with it.”

Congress can only oversee agencies that tell it the truth. For years, Americans who asked what the FBI knew about the laptop, and when, got stonewalled. A courtroom is where these allegations will now be tested. That is more accountability than anyone has seen so far.

TNT Staff