The Justice Department charged two former FBI officials, Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides, with one count each of the rarely-charged offense of lying to Congress over the investigation into Hunter Biden. A court docket shows the counts, and U.S. Attorney for D.C.

Jeanine Pirro said both surrendered Friday morning, alleging they lied about their roles in the Foreign Influence Task Force and the FBI's Hunter Biden investigations.

Floris was the FBI's security lead for the 2020 presidential election; Benavides focused on election security and foreign influence threats.

Both officials were longtime, frequent targets of allies of President Trump, and their own attorneys immediately framed the charges as politically driven.

Floris's lawyers said the DOJ accused her falsely 'on the say-so of politicians, not on the facts,' calling it no coincidence the charges were filed on the eve of an election. Benavides's attorney Ronald S. Safer called the complaint 'transparently political.'

Even Trump, commenting Friday, called the two 'dirty cops, like Comey.'

According to NBC News, the case was brought by criminal complaint, and neither defendant has yet been indicted by a federal grand jury in D.C., where grand jurors have been skeptical of cases brought during Trump's second term — earlier this year, grand jurors rejected an attempt to indict six sitting Democratic members of Congress.

The investigation itself ended with Hunter Biden convicted of gun and tax crimes and pardoned by his father, a fact both sides acknowledge. Floris has separately faced Republican criticism over declassified emails, which intelligence officials called a standard administrative pullback.

The charges land less than two weeks before the midterm elections, and The Guardian's analysis notes Republicans are already struggling on the issues voters care most about, leading by only one trusted issue — crime — across a dozen surveyed.

The administration is pursuing a separate case against former FBI Director James Comey over an '8647' photo post, deepening the pattern of targeting officials Trump has criticized.