Judge throws out Justice Department suit seeking Harvard’s admissions records

A federal magistrate judge in Washington on Monday, Nov. 2, dismissed the Justice Department's criminal complaint against two former senior FBI officials accused of lying to Congress about the bureau's Hunter Biden investigations, ruling that prosecutors had not shown probable cause and calling the case political. The ruling came one day before the midterm elections, according to CBS News, NPR and Fox News.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui threw out the case against Nikki Floris, a former deputy assistant director of the FBI's now-disbanded Foreign Influence Task Force, and Bradley Benavides, its former section chief. "I am deeply troubled by what has happened in this case," Faruqui said, according to CBS News. "What has transpired here can't be described as anything other than weaponization."

**What prosecutors alleged**

The pair were charged by criminal complaint on Oct. 23 over interviews they gave the House Judiciary Committee in 2023, according to RedState and the New York Post. Prosecutors said Floris denied being involved in the Hunter Biden investigation and Benavides said he first learned the FBI had Hunter Biden's laptop from Wikipedia, while internal emails and other evidence showed both discussed the probes, The Epoch Times reported. FBI Director Kash Patel wrote at the time that "Documentary evidence, contemporaneous communications, and witness accounts contradict their testimony," as quoted by ZeroHedge.

**Why the judge dismissed it**

Faruqui went through each element of a false-statements charge and found the government failed to meet any of them, CBS News reported. "Without motive, without direct evidence, I have nothing," he said. "It's not close. It's nothing."

The judge focused heavily on timing. He noted the investigation was opened on Patel's orders the day after a July primetime address by President Donald Trump, and that the 2023 statements could have been charged at any time, according to NPR and The Epoch Times. "I will not bury my head in the sand and pretend I cannot read a calendar," Faruqui said, as quoted by NPR. CBS News reported that he read aloud from the Justice Department manual, which tells prosecutors not to take steps intended to influence an election.

He also criticized the use of a criminal complaint instead of a grand jury indictment, and an unsigned, unsworn superseding complaint prosecutors filed after midnight before last week's hearing, which he struck from the record, according to CBS News and Fox News. NBC News noted that grand juries in Washington have been skeptical of politically charged cases.

During three days of testimony, FBI Special Agent Bryan Witt said Patel and other senior officials checked on the case regularly and that he worried it would be seen as political, according to CBS News and NBC News. CBS News reported that the House Judiciary Committee did not allow agents to interview congressional staff who witnessed the testimony, and that Witt spoke only with the committee's Republican general counsel, Steve Castor.

**The response**

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department "disagrees with the Magistrate's decision, which remarkably appears to suggest that high-ranking government officials are immune from accountability for making materially false statements to Congress", according to NPR. The department can still appeal to the chief judge or seek an indictment from a grand jury, CBS News and NPR reported.

Margaret Donovan, an attorney for Floris, said outside the courthouse that "This case should have never been brought," according to CBS News. Benavides' lawyers called the accusations political theater, NBC News reported.

**How outlets covered it**

The core facts were consistent across the spectrum: nearly every outlet quoted Faruqui's weaponization line and reported that the case could still go to a grand jury. The differences came in context and framing.

Left-leaning and center-left outlets, including CBS News (Lean Left), NPR (Lean Left) and NBC News (Lean Left), gave the most detail on the judge's reasoning, Witt's testimony and the taped call in which a political appointee in U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office was heard admitting a mistake. NPR and NBC News also placed the case among several politically charged Justice Department actions before the midterms. Raw Story (Left) framed the ruling as a rebuke of Trump in its headline.

Right-leaning outlets more often added background on the allegations. The New York Post (Lean Right) noted it broke the laptop story in 2020 and that 51 former intelligence officials had suggested it was Russian disinformation. The Daily Caller (Right) devoted most of its report to the 2020 Round River operation and messages in which Floris wrote about a shadow government, and argued the judge overlooked the 2020 election calendar. Fox News (Right) noted Faruqui's past clashes with prosecutors under the Trump administration. The Gateway Pundit (Right) and The Daily Caller described the pair's congressional statements as false outright, though the judge found prosecutors had not shown probable cause that they lied. Most right-leaning reports did not mention Witt's testimony about the case's handling or the committee's refusal to allow staff interviews.

**On social media**

On Bluesky, widely shared posts from left-leaning commentators welcomed the dismissal and repeated the judge's weaponization quote, with one calling it a dumb DOJ case.

On X, posts in RUSH's sample drew limited engagement. Some users criticized the judge and echoed the Justice Department's statement, while others summarized the timeline of the case the judge laid out.

On Truth Social, RUSH's social monitor did not show significant posts about the ruling at the time of writing.

**What's next**

The Justice Department said it is evaluating all options, according to NPR. Prosecutors could seek an indictment from a grand jury or appeal to the district's chief judge.