A Federal Magistrate Dismisses Charges Against the FBI Agents Who Lied About Interfering in the Hunter Biden Probe

A change of topic for the moment.

One of the FBI agents who lied under oath about interfering in the Hunter Biden probe openly admitted she was running a "shadow government" in the US bureacracy.

A federal judge on Monday dismissed a criminal complaint against two former FBI officials accused of lying to Congress about Hunter Biden, citing what he said was "weaponization" of President Donald Trump's Justice Department just before the midterm elections.

In a scathing, hourlong ruling read from the bench, U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said the investigation that produced the charges against Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides was rushed, conducted at the behest of Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel and dogged by "critical mistakes" that require the dismissal of the case.

"I am deeply troubled by what has happened here in this case," Faruqui said. "Whathas transpired here cannot be described as anything other than weaponization."

Oh? We'll soon see that this magistrate -- not a real judge, and not confirmed by the Senate -- is zimself a big Weaponizer so long as that Weaponization goes against the right.

The ruling may not bring a permanent end to the matter because the Justice Department still has the option of pursuing an indictment, even though it has struggled during the Trump administration to persuade grand juries in the nation's capital to return indictments in politically charged prosecutions like this one.

The magistrate admits his decision is motivated by the political calendar:

...

"I will not bury my head in the sand and pretend that I cannot read a calendar," Faruqui said, alluding to the proximity of the charges to the elections, which will determine control of Congress for the last two years of the Republican president's second term.

Prosecutors had accused the two former FBI officials of falsely downplaying to Congress their knowledge of investigations into President Joe Biden's son and of a laptop the younger Biden dropped off at a computer repair shop in Delaware in 2019. But Faruqui said the Justice Department had failed to establish in its complaint that any statements made during 2023 testimony were intentionally false and had affected lawmakers' investigation of Hunter Biden or that the former officials had any motive to deceive.

Hans Mahncke @HansMahncke

This would be comical if it weren't so depressing. FBI officials Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides were caught dead to rights. Anyone with two functioning brain cells who has read the documents can see that they flatly denied to Congress what they were openly discussing in their own emails. The failure to do anything about the completely out-of-control DC courts, or to at least try to start fixing a system that makes it impossible to hold Democrats accountable, will be the most damning legacy of these past two years.

Oh, and:

A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit against Harvard University by the Justice Department, which alleged the school failed to provide admissions records that could ensure it had ended affirmative action in admissions.

The DOJ had accused Harvard of stonewalling the investigation into potential racial discrimination and refusing to comply with a federal investigation, ABC News reported. The lawsuit asked a judge to force the university to turn over the requested records.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun concluded the DOJ failed to take the necessary procedural steps to acquire the data before filing the lawsuit.

Joun added that the ruling doesn't end the dispute over the data, stressing her decision was on the limited question of whether the government had adequately satisfied the prerequisites, at this point, for judicial enforcement to occur.

Below: More on magistrate Zia Faruqui.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:15 PM

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