Judge who apologized to accused would-be Trump assassin lights up DOJ in Hunter Biden FBI case

A federal magistrate judge in Washington, D.C., publicly scolded the Justice Department on Tuesday for revising its case against two former FBI officials without the court's sign-off. Zia M. Faruqui, who earlier apologized to Cole Allen, a man accused of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump, objected to how prosecutors handled the charging of Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, according to Fox News.

The pair were arrested last week. Prosecutors allege they gave Congress misleading accounts of their roles in inquiries touching Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden. Shortly before a preliminary hearing at which the government had to demonstrate probable cause, the department submitted an updated complaint. It proposed felony obstruction counts and softened some language about the two officials' roles.

The judge faulted the department for lodging the document overnight, unsigned and unsworn, on the public docket before any judicial review, calling that harmful to a defendant. The judge asked why the usual approach was abandoned in this one case, suggesting the government feared a probable cause finding. John Borchert, the prosecutor, conceded this was his first time adding charges that way.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Fox News’s reporting. Read the full story at Fox News →