A three-day hearing into charges against former FBI officials Nicole Floris and Bradley Benavides ended Thursday without a ruling. They are accused of misleading Congress about their knowledge of investigations into Hunter Biden. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui says he'll rule Monday on whether the case can move forward.

Prosecutors argue the defendants repeatedly downplayed what they knew. The defense argues the case is politically driven. Nobody has been acquitted. Now let's look at the people conducting this examination of other people's accuracy.

FBI agent Bryan Witt testified that he hadn't understood, before this week, that congressional committees have partisan staff.

I'm sorry. He didn't—Congress? The building where the parties sit on different sides and spend the day explaining why the other side is destroying America? That Congress?

Investigators initially sent written questions, and only Republican majority counsel Steve Castor answered. Witt testified that the responding staff weren't necessarily present for all the interviews at issue. Investigators interviewed Castor only after discovering errors in the original complaint.

Imagine investigating a disputed baseball game by asking the home team's dugout whether the umpire was fair, then learning during the hearing that there's another fucking dugout.

WHO BRIEFED THE INVESTIGATORS? Was the briefing just a picture of the Capitol with a reassuring check mark beside it?

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The hearing also examined allegations about the defendants' knowledge in August 2020 of a Senate report that wasn't released until September. Apparently the investigation needed both a civics teacher and someone willing to explain how months are arranged.

I need to stop. These are criminal charges. People's liberty is involved. Surely, after the errors emerged, the replacement paperwork received the kind of scrutiny I give an online pizza order before pressing pay.

And then they filed the replacement complaint without an attorney's signature or a magistrate's approval.

WITHOUT. A. SIGNATURE.

The judge struck that superseding complaint. Not the whole underlying case. The attempted replacement. The government had managed to bring a document to court that was, in one crucial respect, still waiting for someone in the government to commit to it.

DOES THE PROSECUTION NEED A PEN PAL?

Faruqui said he would not act as a notary. Fair enough. If the judge has to supply the missing procedural adulthood, perhaps the seal on the filing should be a sticker that says Somebody Helped Me With This.

The prosecutor says repeated downplaying shouldn't be passed off as innocent mistakes. That argument deserves to be tested against evidence—not a prosecution that needs its own corrections department.

Before demanding accountability for somebody else's statements, sign yours.