Ex-FBI official's lawyers slam unusual new criminal charge: 'Outrageous government conduct'

Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism at the FBI Nikki Floris, testifies before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 22, 2019.Susan Walsh | APLawyers for an ex-FBI official charged with lying to Congress lashed out at federal prosecutors in Washington for adding an "unsigned and unsworn" criminal count to her case just hours before a court hearing."What is going on at the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office?" counsel for the former official, Nikki Floris, said in a statement Tuesday morning. "In our combined decades of DOJ service, we have never seen or even heard of something like this being filed."Overnight, that office, led by Jeanine Pirro, submitted a "superseding criminal complaint" charging Floris and co-defendant Bradley Benavides, another ex-FBI official, with obstruction and attempted obstruction of a congressional proceeding.The new count comes on top of the charge of making false statements to Congress that the Department of Justice unveiled four days earlier. Floris and Benavides were initially accused of lying when they testified to the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 about their involvement in investigations of then-President J...