Judge Zia M. Faruqui took center stage after sharply calling out the Justice Department for trying to shift gears in the Hunter Biden-related case against two former FBI officials. The move set off a procedural fight, with the judge blocking the new filing and forcing the government back to its original allegations. That clash quickly turned into a bigger argument about fairness, timing, and how far prosecutors can push a case before a court has signed off.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui, who previously apologized to a man accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump, blasted the DOJ for filing a superseding criminal complaint against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides without first getting judicial approval. The two former FBI officials were arrested after prosecutors said they misled Congress about their role in investigations tied to Hunter Biden. Hours before a scheduled preliminary hearing, the department tried to add fresh obstruction charges while softening some of the original language about their involvement.
That late-night filing did not sit well with Faruqui. He said the complaint should not have been filed at all, especially since it was unsigned and unsworn and landed in the court record before any probable cause finding had been made. His frustration was plain, and he made it clear that the usual process matters, even when the government is eager to move fast.
“I think they should have filed nothing,” Faruqui said, according to reports from inside the courtroom. “They never had complaints filed on their record that are unsigned, waiting for a judge to make a probable cause finding. I think that it is inappropriate and harms the defendant. I’m frustrated that I got it in the middle of the night, but I’m much more concerned that it’s filed on the public record.”
The judge kept pressing the point, asking why this case was suddenly being handled differently from the rest. “Why today on this one case have you changed the entire history of how you charge cases?” Faruqui asked the DOJ. “What is it? It appears that – it makes it look like the United States is afraid of me trying to find probable cause.” Prosecutor John Borchert told the court it was the first time he had filed new charges without going through judicial review.
Faruqui ultimately rejected the superseding complaint and allowed the preliminary hearing to move ahead on the original allegations. That left the government defending the claim that Floris and Benavides lied to Congress, while their lawyers pointed out that the language in the new document was noticeably different from the first one. The defense says those edits raise real questions about the strength of the case and whether the facts are being stretched to fit the charge.
The updated complaint described the pair as having been “involved in” the Foreign Influence Task Force’s work on Hunter Biden, which is a lot softer than saying they were at the “center” of those efforts. Floris, who was once described as taking part in “scores of conversations” about Biden’s son, was now only accused of participating in “conversations.” That kind of wording change may sound small, but in a criminal case it can carry a lot of weight.
Faruqui compared the move to something far less ordinary, saying that filing a superseding complaint without a probable cause finding “would be like charging someone by information… but in a complaint context.” He added, “If you want a superseding complaint, like every other case that’s happened in this district, we will have a judge make a probable cause finding. Not send me something in the middle of the night and expect that it gets done.”
The episode also put Faruqui back in the spotlight for reasons beyond this one case. Conservatives have criticized him before over DEI support, remarks about ICE, and his views on pretrial detention. He also drew heat after apologizing to Cole Allen, the man accused of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump at the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, while questioning the use of five-point restraints against him.
“To me, it’s extremely disturbing that he was put in five-point restraints, a person with no criminal history,” the judge said about Allen at a hearing earlier this year. “It’s troubling. 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.”
Beyond the courtroom drama, the case has fueled broader skepticism about the Justice Department’s choice to use a complaint rather than move through a grand jury. That shortcut is usually reserved for urgent public safety situations, so the optics get messy fast when it is used in a politically charged matter. With the midterm elections looming when the arrests became public, the timing only made the situation louder.
Floris’ legal team has argued that the charges were timed to create noise instead of justice. “What is going on at the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office? In the middle of the night, the government filed an unsigned and unsworn complaint attempting to fix the issues with their original charge against Ms. Floris and adding a new charge just as meritless as the first one,” the lawyers said in a statement provided to CBS News.
“In our combined decades of DOJ service, we have never seen or even heard of something like this being filed,” they went on. “That’s because the public lodging of criminal charges must be authorized by the grand jury, a judge, or the defendant herself. Here, the government has taken that power for itself in a desperate attempt to delay our client’s right to challenge the charges in court and litigate this case in the media, rather than the courtroom. We have asked to address this outrageous government conduct against a decorated public servant at today’s court hearing.”
For now, the DOJ is left defending both its case and its process, while the defense is making the argument that the government tried to rewrite the script after the fact. The courtroom fight is no longer just about two former FBI officials and Hunter Biden-related testimony. It has become a much bigger test of whether prosecutors can bend procedure when the pressure is on, or whether a judge will keep forcing the system back into line.
