Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui, hearing the case against two former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress about Hunter Biden’s laptop, told Justice Department prosecutors, “And so everything you’re doing just is making me more and more concerned that there’s something to that.” He added, “It’s not typical that the president of the United States says go investigate people.”
Faruqui said the government’s handling of the record was “throwing enormous amounts of gasoline onto this fire.” The AP reported he struck an amended complaint adding an obstruction charge because it was filed without a judge’s sign-off, calling the filing “inappropriate” given the defendants’ presumption of innocence.
“Everything is a little sideshow on top of a sideshow,” Faruqui said, and asked prosecutors, “Why today on this one case have you changed the entire history of how you charge cases?”
FBI agent Bryan Witt testified that President Trump’s FBI Director Kash Patel personally assigned the investigation of the former agents to the Kansas City field office, following a July speech by Trump.
Trump called for FBI officials’ prosecution on TV. The next day Kash Patel ordered an inquiry, agent Bryan Witt testified. Witt worried it looked political; colleagues called it a “witch hunt.”
Investigators found no support for the theory, then turned to 2023 testimony. The timing deserves scrutiny.
https://t.co/WtcH1WN3TC
— Mike Young (@micyoung75) October 29, 2026
Witt acknowledged the sequence was unusual. Mary Dohrmann, attorney for defendant Nikki Floris, said whether the filing was the result of “incompetence, recklessness or cruelty,” it was inexcusable, and that “evidence is mounting that this prosecution is about some political football.”
Ronald Safer, lawyer for defendant Bradley Benavides, asked, “What evidence have you uncovered that in September of 2023, Mr. Benavides remembered the correct answers?”
Prosecutors allege that in 2023 House Republican interviews, Floris and Benavides denied contemporaneous knowledge of the laptop and denied taking part in internal FBI discussions about it, though they led the Foreign Influence Task Force. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Borchert defended the filing, saying prosecutors believed court rules allowed it because the government is not seeking to arrest the former officials.
[NOTE: Judge Faruqui has faced criticism from prosecutors in the Trump administration over various rulings, including his handling of cases related to D.C. crime crackdowns, and his courtroom remarks regarding defendants.]
In May, in court, Faruqui apologized to the man accused of plotting an assassination attempt against President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. The suspect, Cole Allen, who did not have a criminal history, was put in five-point restraints, which the judge found “troubling.”
Faruqui said: “I never heard of one Jan. 6 defendant who was put in five-point restraints or in a safe cell. If the only way to keep him safe is the most punitive thing, that’s a problem.” He added, “At a minimum, I should be apologizing to him. We are obligated to make sure he’s taken care of. Mr. Allen, I’m sorry that things have not been the way they are supposed to.”
Trump’s U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, responded by accusing Faruqui of having an “allegiance to those who violate the law.”
[NOTE: A federal judge on Thursday set a September 2027 trial date for Allen.]