Former US Vice President Mike Pence has directed his legal team to continue to cooperate with the DOJ and “to be fully transparent through the conclusion of this matter,” his adviser says.
ADVERTISEMENTThe FBI discovered an additional document with classified markings during a search of former US Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home Friday as part of a classified records probe.
Pence adviser Devin O’Malley said the Department of Justice completed “a thorough and unrestricted search of five hours" and removed “one document with classified markings and six additional pages without such markings that were not discovered in the initial review by the vice president’s counsel."
The search Friday was described as consensual and came after an extensive back-and-forth between Pence’s legal team and the FBI.
A member of Pence’s legal team was at the home during the search and the FBI was given what was described as unrestricted access to search for documents with classified markings, documents that could be classified but without markings and any other documents subject to the Presidential Records Act.
O’Malley said Pence has directed his legal team to continue to cooperate with the DOJ and “to be fully transparent through the conclusion of this matter.”
The former vice president and potential 2024 candidate was out of the state, visiting family in California after the birth of a grandchild.
The Justice Department did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.
Special counsels for Biden and Trump
The department is also investigating the discovery of documents with classification markings at President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware and his former Washington office, as well as former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate.
Separate special counsels have been investigating the discovery of documents with classification markings at Biden’s home in Delaware and his former Washington office, as well as Trump’s Florida estate. Officials are trying to determine whether Trump or anyone on his team criminally obstructed the probe in refusing to turn over the documents before the FBI seizure. The FBI recovered more than 100 documents marked classified while serving a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago last August.
In yet another document development, emails released late Friday revealed that after the National Archives became aware of the discovery of the classified papers at Biden's former Washington office, Archives officials requested and received papers that had been shipped to a law office in Boston by the president’s personal attorney.
No classified documents were believed to be in the Boston documents.
An 'abundance of caution'
The circumstances of the Biden and Pence cases are markedly different from that of Trump.
Pence, according to his lawyer, Greg Jacob, requested a review of records stored at his home “out of an abundance of caution” during the uproar over the discovery of classified documents at home and former private office. When the documents were discovered, Jacob said, they were immediately secured in a locked safe and reported to the National Archives. FBI agents then collect the documents that had been secured.
Material found in the boxes came mostly from Pence’s Naval Observatory vice presidential residence, while other material came from a West Wing office drawer.
Pence has said he was unaware the documents had been in his possession.
“Let me be clear: Those classified documents should not have been in my personal residence,”
“We acted above politics and put national interests first," he said.
The Presidential Records Act states that any records created or received by the president while in office are the property of the US government and will be managed by the Archives at the end of an administration.