FBI finds another classified document at Mike Pence’s home

Washington, Feb 10 (EFE).- The FBI came across another classified document at the Indiana home of the former vice president of the United States, Mike Pence, during a “consensual” search of the residence on Friday, an aide to Pence 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,” Devin O’Malley said.

“The vice president has directed his legal team to continue its cooperation with appropriate authorities and to be fully transparent through the conclusion of this matter,” the aide said, reiterating that Pence and his lawyers consented to the search.

CNN cited a spokesperson for the former vice president as saying that Pence and his wife are on the West Coast with their daughter, who recently gave birth.

Following disclosures that classified documents were found at the home of President Joe Biden, Pence had an attorney search the files at the residence in Carmel, a suburb of Indianapolis.

The lawyer found that a “small number of documents” with classified markings had been “inadvertently boxed and transported” to the Indiana home during the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration, Pence adviser Greg Jacob said last month.

“Vice President Pence immediately secured those documents in a locked safe pending further direction on proper handling from the National Archives,” Jacob said.

The search came a day after media reported that Pence received a subpoena from the Department of Justice special counsel investigating Trump for retaining classified documents after he left the White House and for his role in the riot at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Unnamed sources told ABC News that special counsel Jack Smith is seeking documents and testimony about Trump’s efforts to reverse his defeat to Biden in the November 2020 election.

Pence was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 to preside over the certification of Biden’s victory when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the building.

Some members of the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” reflecting anger toward the vice president for his refusal to accede to Trump’s demand that he invalidate electoral votes for Biden in a bid to overturn the result of the election.

At the start of 2023, the public learned that classified documents from the 2009-2017 administration of President Barack Obama were found in November at an office in Washington used by Biden between 2017 and the launch of his campaign for the presidency in 2020.

Subsequent searches of Biden’s homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth, Delaware, turned up classified materials from his time as Obama’s vice president and from the 37 years he spent in the US Senate.

On Jan. 12, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee the investigation of Biden’s handling of classified documents.

That appointment came months after Garland named Smith to oversee the probe involving classified materials recovered from Trump’s residence in Florida during a search by the FBI.

The Biden administration has sought to contrast the two cases by pointing out that the FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence came after the former president failed to return official documents that he had no right to have removed from the White House. EFE mgr/dr