 |
| Police blocked roads in the subdivision as the FBI raided former Vice President Mike Pence's residence in Carmel, north of Indianapolis. |
The FBI on Friday (February 10) found a classified document at former Vice President Mike Pence's Indiana home, after his lawyers found it there last month sensitive government documents.
Pence's adviser, Devin O'Malley, said the Justice Department completed "a thorough and unrestricted search that lasted five hours" and took away "a classified document and six other pages without such marks, which were not found during an initial review by the vice president's attorneys."
The search was said to be a negotiated agreement between Pence's representatives and the Justice Department, as Pence has been subpoenaed to participate in an investigation into former President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and Pence is considering Running as a Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
Pence is now the third senior U.S. official, living or dead. official whose homes have been raided by FBI agents looking for classified records, after FBI agents also searched the homes of Trump and Biden. Pence and Biden's willingness to have the FBI search their residences and appear fully cooperative shows that both want to avoid the controversy that surrounded Trump last year and resulted in the Justice Department having to obtain a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago. drama.
FBI agents entered Pence's residence in Carmel, north of Indianapolis, on Friday afternoon, and police closed off roads in the complex. Pence, who is out of state himself, traveled to California to visit family after the birth of his granddaughter.
A member of Pence's legal team was said to be at his home at the time, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide The Associated Press with an account of the enforcement operation. The FBI was granted unrestricted access, the person said.
The FBI has obtained what Pence's lawyers previously described as "a small amount of documents" that were allegedly "inadvertently boxed and shipped" to Pence's Indiana home at the end of the Trump administration.
The Justice Department did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Different special counsels have been investigating the discovery of classified-marked documents at Biden's Delaware home and former office in Washington, as well as at Trump's Florida estate. Officials are trying to determine whether Trump or anyone on his team constituted criminal obstruction of the investigation by refusing to turn over the documents before the FBI seized them. Last August, the FBI seized more than 100 documents marked as classified when they executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.
The situation of Biden and Pence is markedly different from that of Trump.
Amid the uproar over the discovery of classified documents at Biden's home and former private office, Pence asked his lawyers to review documents stored at his home "out of a Greg Jacob, his attorney, declared: "Excessive care." When Pence's papers were discovered, they were kept safely in a locked safe and had also been reported to the National Archives, Jacobs said. FBI agents then took them away.
Most of the materials in the boxes came from the residence near the Naval Observatory where Pence lived as vice president. Other materials came from drawers in offices in the West Wing of the White House.
Pence has said he did not know the documents were in his possession.
"Let me be clear: Those classified documents should not be in my private residence. Pence just admitted his shortcomings and accepted full responsibility at Florida International University.
"Our actions transcend politics and put the national interest first," he said.
Following news of the discovery of classified documents at the homes of Biden and Pence, the National Archives last month asked former U.S. presidents and vice presidents to review their personal records for the existence of any classified documents.
The Presidential Records Act states that any records created or received by a president while in the office are the property of the United States government and will be managed by following the conclusion of the administration, the National Archives.
0 Comments