The FBI is expected to search former Vice President Mike Pence‘s Indiana home for more classified documents.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday on the move, with sources saying that the Justice Department is in talks with Pence’s legal team.
Additionally, CNN reported that Pence’s office in the Washington, D.C.-area would also be searched.
Pence’s team does not believe there are additional documents to be found, the network reported.
Last month, Pence’s lawyers voluntarily disclosed that documents with classified markings were discovered at the ex-veep’s home – on the heels of classified documents being found at President Joe Biden‘s former D.C. office and Wilmington home, and after former President Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago was raided by the FBI for missing documents in August.
The documents were discovered by one of Pence’s lawyer, who had been tasked to look through his papers at the vice president’s request, out of the abundance of caution.
The FBI is expected to search former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home for more classified documents
They were found on January 16, with Pence’s lawyer Greg Jacob writing a letter and informing the National Archives of the discovery on January 18.
Jacob asked a top Archives official for help ‘collecting and transferring to the custody of the National Archives an additional set of Vice Presidential records.’
‘The additional 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,’ Jacob said.
‘Vice President Pence was unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence,’ the lawyer added.
FBI agents came to collect the documents on January 19 – but haven’t sifted through Pence’s papers on their own yet.
Sources told CNN that the documents were of a lesser classification than the top-secret papers found at Biden‘s Delaware home and Washington, D.C. office and the more than 300 files found at Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago resort.
The network reported that the documents were background briefing materials for foreign trips.
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s $1.9million Carmel, Indiana home
Pence gave Biden some political cover with the admission that he had also taken classified documents home.
Now some of the narrative is whether there’s an overclassification problem in Washington and if departing presidents and vice presidents need to follow better protocols when packing up.
Last week, CBS News reported that Pence’s aides didn’t start packing up his office until after January 6, because Trump insisted it look like everyone was sticking around for a second term, as he contested the election results by spreading false voter fraud claims.
For weeks, the Biden White House has been under fire for keeping the initial discovery of classified documents at the president’s former D.C. think tank office quiet until after the midterm elections.
After that, additional documents were found at his Wilmington residence.
On Wednesday, the FBI searched the president’s Rehoboth Beach, Delaware vacation home.
No classified documents were found.
New House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said Tuesday that the National Archives was stopped from putting out a press release announcing the discovery of documents at the Biden think tank, with just days to go before the midterms.
Republicans ended up having an underwhelming performance in the November elections, squeaking out a narrow majority in the House, with Democrats retaining control of the Senate.
On Sean Hannity’s Tuesday night program, Comer claimed that either the White House or Attorney General Merrick Garland interfered – with Democrats getting a political benefit.
‘There are only two people that could have given those orders, and that’s either the Department of Justice with Merrick Garland or the White House with Joe Biden,’ the Kentucky Republican said. ‘So, it shows right there that this Department of Justice and this White House is interfering with this.’
Comer made the comments after his panel interviewed the National Archives’ general counsel Gary Stern.
Stern told Oversight Committee members that he couldn’t tell them who gave the order not to release a statement.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has argued that the Biden White House did the right thing by immediately flagging the discovery of documents to the National Archives.
However, the administration did not confirm the discovery to the American people, until after it was reported by CBS News.
Republicans, including Pence, have decried the ‘double standard’ of Biden being able to hand over his documents, while Trump’s Florida home and club were raided.
In a January 10 radio interview with Hugh Hewitt, Pence called the Mar-a-Lago raid a ‘massive overreach’ and a ‘massive overreaction.’
‘But having now created that standard and now abandoned that standard when the current president of the United States is found to have had classified documents in his possession after leaving office, I think it just, I have no words right now. It’s just incredibly frustrating to me,’ Pence said.
Pence has continued to defend Trump despite the two men having a falling out over Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Biden’s allies have pointed out that Trump lied about still having documents in his possession while the National Archives was trying to get them back.
Garland appointed two special counsels to oversee the investigation into Trump and Biden.
