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The list of people not caught with classified documents that they are not supposed to have is starting to appear shorter than the list of those who have been caught with them.
An attorney for former Vice President Mike Pence has announced that he found classified documents at the Indiana home of the former vice president and has given them to the FBI.
CNN reported: “The FBI and the Justice Department’s National Security Division have launched a review of the documents and how they ended up in Pence’s house in Indiana. The classified documents were discovered at Pence’s new home in Carmel, Indiana, by a lawyer for Pence in the wake of the revelations about classified material discovered in President Joe Biden’s private office and residence, the sources said. The discovery comes after Pence has repeatedly said he did not have any classified documents in his possession.”
After the scandals involving classified documents with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump the former vice president instructed an attorney of his, who has had security clearances in the past, to conduct a search of his residence for classified documents.
“Pence asked his lawyer to conduct the search of his home out of an abundance of caution, and the attorney began going through four boxes stored at Pence’s house last week, finding a small number of documents with classified markings, the sources said,” CNN reported.
“Pence’s lawyer immediately alerted the National Archives, the sources said. In turn, the Archives informed the Justice Department,” the report said.
“A lawyer for Pence told CNN that the FBI requested to pick up the documents with classified markings that evening, and Pence agreed. Agents from the FBI’s field office in Indianapolis picked up the documents from Pence’s home, the lawyer said,” it said.
The report said that it was a small number of documents that were found.
“Vice President Pence was unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence,” his attorney Greg Jacob said. “Vice President Pence understands the high importance of protecting sensitive and classified information and stands ready and willing to cooperate fully with the National Archives and any appropriate inquiry.”
The Department of Justice is considering searching more locations for classified documents after a search of his Wilmington, Delaware home on Friday uncovered more classified material, CBS News reported.
“Justice Department officials are also considering the possibility of conducting other consensual searches at locations linked to Mr. Biden, said the source familiar with the investigation,” the report said.
“DOJ took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President. DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years,” the president’s personal attorney said.
The search was conducted over a 12-hour period on Friday with the approval of the president’s attorneys, unlike the raid on former President Donald Trump’s home, CNN reported.
Those six items are in addition to materials previously found at Biden’s Wilmington residence and in his private office.
The federal search of Biden’s home, while voluntary, marks an escalation of special counsel Robert Hur’s probe into the president’s handling of classified documents and will inevitably draw comparisons to his predecessor, former President Donald Trump – even if the FBI’s search of Trump’s residence was conducted under different circumstances.
The FBI five months ago obtained a search warrant to search Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, an unprecedented step that was taken because federal investigators had evidence suggesting Trump had not handed over all classified materials in his possession after receiving a subpoena to turn over classified documents to the National Archives. Trump’s handling of classified material at Mar-a-Lago is also the subject of a special counsel investigation led by Jack Smith.
The search shows that federal investigators are swiftly moving forward with the probe into classified documents found in Biden’s possession. Hur, who was appointed a little more than a week ago, is investigating how the president and his team handled Obama-era classified documents that were recently found in Biden’s private possession.
