Was Arrested FBI Official A Source For Former NBC Reporter’s Hunter Biden Laptop Russian Disinfo ‘Scoop?’

An FBI official who boasted about running a “shadow government” helped to shape the media narrative that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, a new legal complaint suggests.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Friday the arrest of former FBI Foreign Interference Task Force (FITF) Chief Nikki Floris. In the lead-up to the 2020 election between President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden, Floris muddied factual and derogatory reporting about the Biden family by labeling it a part and parcel of malign Russian influence, according to the legal complaint and declassified documents.

The criminal complaint specifically refers to an NBC journalist. The events described align with a story by then-NBC correspondent Ken Dilanian, the outlet’s FBI reporter.

Though the document does not prove Floris was a source for Dilanian, it does indicate that she worked with the media and received a message from NBC at the same time the outlet broke a story that suited the FBI’s narrative.

Floris and co-defendant Bradley Benavides are scheduled to appear in federal magistrate court in Washington, D.C. today. Floris could not be reached for comment.

She has denied wrongdoing through her attorneys, who said in a statement last week that “the DOJ has accused her falsely of a crime on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts.”

NBC and Dilanian did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The complaint shows that Floris acted as a source for the media in the wake of an Oct. 14, 2020, story revealing some of the damaging contents of a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a computer repair shop and revealing the FBI had seized it.

The next day, on Oct. 15, 2020, Floris assisted with the FBI’s response to press inquiries. The subject line of one email read “Ny post… morning answer?” and included a question about whether the FBI had the laptop, the legal complaint states.