On October 16, 2020, the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force drafted talking points for Director Christopher Wray. If anyone asked whether Hunter Biden's laptop might be "part of a Russia disinformation effort," section chief Bradley Benavides suggested Wray could say people "could be concerned."
The FBI had the laptop. It had been sitting in evidence for ten months.
Someone sent the draft to the task force's leader: "Nikki, thoughts???"
Nikki Floris answered: "Looks good!"
Three years later, the House Judiciary Committee asked Floris whether her task force had ever discussed Hunter Biden. "No. At least not with me," she said. "I personally did not have any conversations."
Benavides, for his part, told the committee he'd picked up some details about the laptop investigation from Wikipedia while getting ready to testify.
On Monday, a federal judge threw out the criminal case against both of them.
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui ruled that prosecutors hadn't shown probable cause that the two had knowingly and willfully lied to Congress. He called the prosecution's case "slapdash." "Without motive, without direct evidence, I have nothing," he said. Then he went further and called the case "weaponization," pointing to its timing two weeks before the midterms. "I will not bury my head in the sand and pretend that I cannot read a calendar," he said.
Part of the judge's frustration was fair. Prosecutors never interviewed the congressional staffers who were in the room when Floris and Benavides testified. A special counsel to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro acknowledged in court that it was a serious error. Prosecutors also tried to add obstruction charges with an unsigned filing filed in the middle of the night, and the judge struck it.
So prosecutors fumbled the paperwork. The emails are still there.
Monday's ruling didn't find that Floris and Benavides did nothing wrong in 2020. It didn't explain away "Looks good!" It didn't explain why an official who said she "personally did not have any conversations" about Hunter Biden was signing off on the director's talking points about Hunter Biden's laptop. It didn't explain how the section chief whose unit helped frame the laptop as possible Russian disinformation ended up learning about it from Wikipedia.
The question in front of the judge was narrow: had prosecutors proved, at this early stage, that the testimony was a willful and material lie? He said they hadn't, yet.
Floris's lawyer says the case "should have never been brought." Benavides's lawyers called it "political theater."
The timing argument is worth noticing. When Donald Trump said his indictments were timed to hurt him politically, he was told the calendar had nothing to do with the merits. Now a federal judge is pointing to the calendar as part of his reason to toss a case against two officials accused of shielding the Biden family. Apparently the calendar only matters for some defendants.
Here's what isn't in dispute. The laptop was real. In 2024, Joe Biden's own Justice Department put it in front of a jury at Hunter's gun trial, and an FBI agent testified it was authentic. In 2020, 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter saying it had "the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." Joe Biden quoted that letter on a debate stage days before the election. Twitter blocked the story. And the task force Floris and Benavides ran was so useful to the country that Attorney General Pam Bondi shut it down.
The case isn't over. The Justice Department can appeal to the chief judge or take the case to a grand jury for an indictment.
Floris told Congress she had no conversations about Hunter Biden. Her answer to the director's laptop talking points is still in the record: "Looks good!"