两名前联邦调查局（FBI）官员因涉嫌就其参与涉及前总统乔·拜登之子亨特·拜登的调查一事向国会撒谎而被起诉，将于周二再次出庭。
Two former FBI officials charged with lying to Congress about their participation in investigations involving Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, are due back in court.
埃里克·塔克、阿兰娜·德金·里彻 华盛顿报道 —— 两名前联邦调查局官员妮基·弗洛里斯和布拉德利·贝纳维德斯因涉嫌就其参与涉及前总统乔·拜登之子亨特·拜登的调查一事向国会撒谎而被起诉，将于周二在华盛顿联邦法院出席初步听证会。他们的律师称该案毫无根据且具有政治动机。
这起于周五宣布的起诉，是司法部在下周中期选举前夕采取的一系列轰动性且极具政治色彩的调查行动中的最新一起。
ERIC TUCKER, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER WASHINGTON — Two former FBI officials charged with lying to Congress about their participation in investigations involving Hunter Biden the son of former President Joe Biden, are due back in court Tuesday in a case their lawyers have described as baseless and politically motivated. The prosecution of Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, announced Friday, is the latest in a series of splashy and politically charged investigative actions the Justice Department has undertaken in the run-up to next week’s midterm elections.
起诉书指控这两名前官员虚假地淡化了他们关于一台笔记本电脑的知情情况，司法部称亨特·拜登于2019年将该电脑遗留在一家电脑维修店。但除此之外，此案还代表了特朗普政府对一个已解散的联邦调查局特别工作组的猛烈抨击，该工作组原本设立用于监测外国影响。国会共和党人长期以来一直批评该工作组，称其试图诋毁他们自身对拜登家族的调查。
The case accuses the former officials of falsely playing down their knowledge about a laptop the Justice Department says Hunter Biden abandoned at a computer repair shop in 2019. But beyond that, it represents a Trump administration broadside against a since-disbanded FBI task force that was set up to monitor foreign influence. Congressional Republicans have long criticized the task force, saying it tried to discredit their own investigations into the Biden family.
预计辩护律师将在周三于华盛顿联邦法院举行的初步听证会上对该案提出质疑，其中包括强调一个不同寻常的事实：这两名前联邦调查局官员是通过一名联邦治安法官签署的刑事诉状被起诉的，而非由大陪审团投票决定的起诉书。据认为，司法部在多起高调案件中曾反复难以说服首都的大陪审团发回起诉书。
Defense lawyers are expected to challenge the case at a preliminary hearing Tuesday in Washington’s federal court, including by highlighting the unusual fact that the ex-FBI officials were charged via a criminal complaint signed by a magistrate judge rather than an indictment voted on by a grand jury. The Justice Department is thought to have repeatedly struggled in high-profile cases to persuade grand juries in the nation’s capital to return indictments.
这是一个非常错综复杂的事件。这起起诉案是司法部罕见地对一名前雇员提起的刑事案件，它重提了一个错综复杂的事件，该事件在2020年大选最后几周引发轩然大波，当时《纽约邮报》披露了一台笔记本电脑的存在，称该电脑是小拜登大约一年前送到特拉华州一家电脑维修店的。
It is a very intricate saga The prosecution, a rare Justice Department criminal case against a former employee, revisits a tangled saga that roiled the final weeks of the 2020 race after the New York Post revealed the existence of a laptop it said had been dropped off by the younger Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop about a year earlier.
《纽约邮报》称，它从唐纳德·特朗普总统的亲密盟友鲁迪·朱利安尼那里获得了这台笔记本电脑的硬盘，并报道了电脑中的部分内容，包括一些似乎显示亨特·拜登海外商业往来的电子邮件。
The Post said it had obtained a hard drive of the laptop from Rudy Giuliani, a close ally of President Donald Trump, and reported on some of the contents of the computer, including emails that appeared to show some of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.
这台笔记本电脑被发现的离奇情况，引发了民主党人和前情报官员的担忧，他们担心可能存在俄罗斯介入的情况，特别是当特朗普政府自己的情报界已经评估认为，莫斯科正试图破坏民主党提名人乔·拜登的竞选活动（乔·拜登后来在2020年击败了特朗普），而朱利安尼曾出国为拜登家族寻找把柄。
The curious circumstances of the laptop’s discovery raised concerns among Democrats and former intelligence officials about the possibility of Russian involvement, particularly when the Trump administration’s own intelligence community had assessed that Moscow was attempting to undermine the candidacy of Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who went on to defeat Trump in 2020, and as Giuliani had traveled abroad looking for dirt on the Bidens.
但特朗普当时的国家情报总监约翰·拉特克利夫迅速试图平息关于该笔记本电脑来源的猜测，称没有迹象表明它与俄罗斯行为体有任何关系。联邦调查局（FBI）表示，除了拉特克利夫的声明外，无话可说，并因枪支和税务指控调查了小拜登，这些指控后来导致重罪定罪。乔·拜登总统于2024年底赦免了他的儿子。
But Trump’s then-national intelligence director, John Ratcliffe, quickly sought to quell speculation about the laptop’s provenance by saying there were no signs it had anything to do with Russian actors. The FBI said it had nothing to add to Ratcliffe’s statement and investigated the younger Biden on gun and tax charges that later resulted in felony convictions President Joe Biden pardoned his son in late 2024.
被告曾领导外国影响特别工作组。受到审查的联邦调查局官员弗洛里斯和贝纳维德斯曾是外国影响特别工作组的负责人，该工作组是在第一届特朗普政府时期成立的，旨在打击俄罗斯和其他国家为制造分歧、破坏民主和散布虚假信息而发起的影响力行动。
The accused led the Foreign Influence Task Force The FBI officials under scrutiny, Floris and Benavides, were leaders of the Foreign Influence Task Force, which was established in the first Trump administration to police influence campaigns staged by Russia and other nations aimed at sowing discord, undermining democracy and spreading disinformation.
在此身份下，联邦调查局官员于2020年8月向共和党参议员查克·格拉斯利和罗恩·约翰逊进行了简报，当时这两位议员正在自行调查亨特·拜登在乌克兰的工作。简报消息泄露后，两位参议员猛烈抨击联邦调查局，称他们对拜登家族的审查工作已被抹黑，并被错误地与俄罗斯虚假信息联系在一起。
In that capacity, the FBI officials briefed Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson in August 2020 as the lawmakers were doing their own investigation into Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine. News of the briefing leaked, and the senators lashed out at the FBI, saying their efforts to scrutinize the Biden family had been discredited and falsely linked to Russian disinformation.
刑事起诉书指控他们在2023年向立法者撒谎，否认当时知情拜登笔记本电脑一事，或否认参与过联邦调查局内部关于该电脑的讨论。他们的律师否认任何不当行为指控。该工作组于2025年2月由时任司法部长帕姆·邦迪解散。
The criminal complaint accuses them of lying to lawmakers in 2023 by denying contemporaneous knowledge of the Biden laptop or participating in internal FBI conversations about it. Their lawyers have denied any allegations of wrongdoing. The task force was disbanded in February 2025 by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.