A federal judge on Monday blasted the Department of Justice for "weaponization" as he dismissed its case accusing two former FBI officials of lying to Congress about investigations into Hunter Biden, multiple news outlets reported.
Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui, in a hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, reportedly tore into the DOJ over its "slapdash job" prosecuting ex-officials Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, saying he was "deeply troubled by what has happened here."
Faruqui said the government lacked probable cause and failed to present evidence that the officials' statements before the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 were knowingly false, MS NOW reported.
He also accused the DOJ of wrongly rushing the case ahead of the midterm election. The situation "cannot be described as anything other than weaponization," he said, according to MS NOW.
The judge even apologized to the government's lawyers, calling it "incredibly unfair" that they were assigned to defend the flawed case.
"This does not feel like an investigation," Faruqui reportedly added. "It feels like a broken one-wish willow obsession."
The DOJ did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.
Attorneys for Floris and Benavides praised the judge's decision outside the courthouse later Monday morning.
"This case should never have been brought. The government had no case, as the judge just laid out," a lawyer for Floris said, slamming the prosecution as a "spaghetti-at-the-wall, Hunter-Biden-conspiracy fever dream."
A lawyer for Benavides said they hope the DOJ will not try to keep the case alive by seeking an indictment before a grand jury "where they get to be behind closed doors and get to shape the narrative, and we are unable to present our side."
The DOJ did not take that step when they unveiled the allegations against Floris and Benavides on Oct. 23.
Rather, despite the alleged misconduct taking place years earlier, prosecutors acquired a criminal complaint, which only requires a judge's signature. Criminal complaints are often used to obtain arrest warrant in situations where prosecutors need to move quickly.
Faruqui had flagged that circumstance as unusual, and last week refused to sign off on a superseding complaint that added an obstruction charge against the two ex-officials.
"I'm concerned with your view as to what the law is," the judge told the prosecutors in a hearing last Tuesday. "Why today, on this one case, have you changed the entire history of how you charge cases?"