Classified documents found at former US vice president Mike Pence’s home: Reports

A lawyer of the former United States Vice President Mike Pence discovered at least a dozen documents marked classified at his residence in Indiana, last week (January 16) which have since been handed over to the FBI, first reported by CNN. Since the discovery, Greg Jacob, Pence’s legal counsel, wrote two letters to the National Archives and said that the former VP was “unaware” of the existence of the documents in question and will “cooperate fully” for the inquiry.

This comes as incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are under investigation by the Department of Justice investigation (DOJ) for retaining classified documents from their time in office. Pence also served as the vice president from 2017 to 2021, when Trump was president.

While there is no clarity on what the documents are related to or the sensitivity of the information they carry, as per CNN, Pence’s team notified leaders in Congress and relevant committees of the discovery on Tuesday (January 24).

In a letter dated January 18, the former VP’s lawyer wrote that the records “appear to be a small number of documents bearing classified markings that were inadvertently boxed and transported to the personal home of the former vice president at the end of the last administration”.

The search took place on Monday after Pence had engaged outside counsel who had experience in handling classified documents, to review the documents stored in his personal home, said the lawyer. Subsequently, they “identified a small number of documents that could potentially contain sensitive or classified information”.

He also claimed that the former vice president immediately secured the documents “in a locked safe pending further direction on proper handling from the National Archives.” A follow-up letter from Jacobs dated January 22, said they handed the documents to the FBI agents from their field office in Indianapolis who visited Pence’s residence to collect late Thursday (January 19). At the time, the former VP was in Washington DC to attend the March for Life.

A total of four boxes containing copies of administration papers were found at Pence’s home, out of which two had a “small number of papers appearing to bear classified markings” while the other two contained “courtesy copies of vice presidential papers,” said Jacob.

On Monday (January 23), Pence’s legal team drove the boxes of documents back to Washington and handed them over to the National Archives to review the rest of the material for compliance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA). Notably, Pence had previously said that he did not retain any classified documents or information from his time in office.

In an interview with Fox, earlier this month, he asserted, “before we left the White House, the attorneys on my staff went through all the documents at both the White House and our offices there and at the vice president’s residence to ensure that any documents that needed to be turned over to the National Archives, including classified documents, were turned over”, reported the AP.

Additionally, in another interview in 2022, in the context of classified documents found at former president Trump’s Florida residence and the issuance of a search warrant to the FBI when asked if he had taken classified documents from the White House, Pence told ABC News, “I did not…Well, there’d be no reason to have classified documents, particularly if they were in an unprotected area.”

(With inputs from agencies)

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