The FBI plans to search former Vice President Mike Pence’s home in Indiana in the coming days for any potential classified materials, as multiple reports cite.
However, the timing of the search is still unclear. Sources familiar with the matter stated that the Department of Justice is in discussion with the former vice president’s legal team to schedule the search.
The FBI also plans to search Pence’s office located in Washington DC.
The search has been proposed days after several documents with classified markings were discovered at Mike Pence’s Indiana home last week. According to the notification sent to the National Archives Wednesday last week by the former Vice President’s legal team, a small number of classified documents were “inadvertently boxed and transported” to his home at the end of the last administration.
Pence’s lawyers stated that the former vice president was “unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence.”
The discovery of classified material at Pence’s home makes him the third US official, including President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump, to have been found possessing classified documents from their time in the office.
“Mistakes were made…” says Mike Pence over classified documents controversy
After the documents were discovered at his home, Mike Pence, in an interview stated that he takes “full responsibility” for the documents.
“During the closing days of administration, when materials were boxed and assembled, some of which were shipped to our personal residence, mistakes were made,” he said in the interview, adding, “We were not aware of it at the time until we did the review just a few short weeks ago, but I take full responsibility for it, and we’re going to continue to support every appropriate inquiry into it.”
Pence’s legal team was unable to give an exact number on the documents found at the former vice president’s residence as they were locked away till they were turned over to the National Archives.
The proposed search comes after the FBI completed a similar search at President Joe Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The White House later confirmed that no additional classified documents were discovered there. However, the FBI did unearth more classified documents at President Biden’s residence in Wilmington and his old office at the Penn Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. The documents date to Biden’s time as Vice President.
The FBI also searched former president Donald Trump’s home in Florida where hundreds of classified materials were recovered. However, the search at Trump’s home was more of a raid, where FBI officials showed up at Mar-a-Lago without prior notice while the former president was out of town.
Former president Trump, in a recent interview also argued that he, as President, had every right to declassify any document he wished, while Joe Biden, being Vice President at the time, did not.
“I was President; I had the right to declassify…He (Biden) was under the Federal restraints act which is a much tougher situation.”
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