Greg Jacob, a lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence discovered about a dozen documents marked as classified at Pence’s Indiana home last week, and he has turned those classified records over to the FBI, multiple sources familiar with the matter said. No classified docs were found at Pence’s Advancing American Freedom office. The Associated Press has the story: :
Classified docs found at Mike Pence’s Indiana home
Newslooks- NEW YORK (AP)
A lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence said that Documents with classified markings were discovered in former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana Home last week.
“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,” Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, told the National Archives in a letter last week.
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.
Pence told the Associated Press in August that he did not take any classified information with him when he left office.
Asked directly if he had retained any classified information upon leaving office, he said, “No, not to my knowledge.”
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.
Vice President Mike Pence informed Congress Tuesday that he discovered documents bearing classified markings in his Carmel, Indiana, home on Jan. 16 from his time as vice president.
Following the revelations that classified documents from President Biden’s tenure as vice president were found at the Penn Biden Center think tank and Wilmington, Delaware, the vice president’s team conducted searches of Pence’s Indiana home and political advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom, office.
According to his team, Pence informed the National Archives on Jan. 18 of a small number of potential classified documents found in two small boxes. Another two boxes contained copies of vice presidential papers. The National Archives then informed the FBI per standard procedure.
Pence attorney Greg Jacob wrote on Jan. 18 Acting Director Kate Dillon McClure of the White House Liaison Division National Archives and Records Administration to inform her of the papers “containing classified markings.”
After the documents with classified markings were discovered, they were immediately put into a safe, according to the Pence team.
The documents were collected by the FBI at Pence’s home in Carmel, Indiana, on Thursday evening, Jan. 19. Pence was in Washington, D.C. for the annual March for Life when the FBI collected the documents.
Pence’s team said that although the documents bear classified markings, the Department of Justice or the agency that issues the documents will need to make a final determination on whether the documents are considered classified or not.
According to Pence’s attorney Greg Jacob in a letter to Chief Operating Officer William “Jay” Bosanko of the National Archives and Records Administration on Jan. 22, the DOJ departed from its standard procedures that it ran with Biden, when it requested direct possession of the documents on Jan. 19.
Other documents that were not identified as potential classified documents were driven from Indiana to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
No classified docs were found at Pence’s Advancing American Freedom office.
