Judge Faruqui rightly rejects Justice Department shortcut
By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta ·
Judge Faruqui correctly rejected an unsigned filing against former FBI officials, striking down a Justice Department shortcut that undermined the essential rules of criminal procedure.
The Justice Department is wrong. It tried to treat the federal court docket as a suggestion box. On October 27, 2026, Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui dismissed new charges against former FBI officials Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides. The government attempted to add an obstruction charge through a filing that was both unsigned and unsworn. In doing so, the Justice Department abandoned the basic rules of criminal procedure to avoid the scrutiny of a judge.
The midnight shortcut to a new charge
The government used a superseding criminal complaint. This is a document used to replace or amend an original complaint. According to NBC News, this specific filing arrived overnight. It lacked the signature of a judge or a law enforcement officer.
Magistrate Judge Faruqui did not merely disagree with the filing. He ordered the documents to be struck from the record. He stated that prosecutors created "their own category of charging." He further noted that "this system is being misused by people of higher levels."
The government’s own prosecutor, John Borchert, admitted the irregularity. Borchert stated that "this has never been done before." Judge Faruqui was blunt about the effect. He questioned why the government failed to follow what it has done in every other case in the history of the district.
A distraction by design
The original charges involve testimony given to a congressional committee. Floris and Benavides face allegations of making false statements to Congress about their knowledge of investigations into Hunter Biden.
However, the record suggests the prosecution is a product of pressure rather than process. FBI Special Agent Bryan Witt testified that the investigation began after FBI Director Kash Patel sent a letter to the Kansas City office. Witt testified that the assignment was a "huge distraction" from a public corruption case. He stated that agents were "told to work it aggressively."
Witt admitted he had concerns that the case "would be viewed as political." This aligns with the view of Mary Dohrmann, counsel for Floris. She described the case as a "political football." The defense argued that the overnight filing was an effort to evade judicial scrutiny. They noted that the public lodging of criminal charges must be authorized by a grand jury, a judge, or the defendant. The defense calls this a political football. That is a claim, not a legal holding.
The machinery of obstruction
The mechanism here mirrors the First Impeachment of Donald Trump. In that case, the House adopted articles of impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress on December 18, 2019. The Senate acquitted him on February 5, 2020. Both matters rely on the same engine: the pursuit of charges for obstruction of Congress based on the withholding of information or false statements provided to legislative bodies.
In both instances, the line between legislative oversight and criminal liability becomes blurred. When the Justice Department files a complaint without a signature, it attempts to bypass the probable cause check. Probable cause is the constitutional requirement that a neutral judge find a reasonable basis for a search or seizure before it happens.
As reported by ABC News and CBS News, the government tried to fix the issues with its original charge by filing in the middle of the night. This is not a clerical error. It is a choice to avoid the adversarial testing of a preliminary hearing. When the government ignores the rules of the court to secure a win, it spends the legitimacy of the entire system.
The government will likely seek an indictment via a federal grand jury. That step bypasses the magistrate judge's preliminary hearing scrutiny over probable cause and materiality. A grand jury operates in secret. It lacks the immediate oversight of a magistrate judge. This would allow the government to avoid a public examination of whether the charges against Floris and Benavides are based on law or political directive. The court must now decide if it will tolerate a prosecution that views judicial procedure as an obstacle to be circumvented.