As more and more classified documents are discovered in President Biden's Wilmington home, it turns out more than just Biden and former President Trump took sensitive materials from their respective vice presidential and presidential offices.
On Tuesday, CNN broke the news that former Vice President Mike Pence also had some classified documents, a fact he informed Congress of on Tuesday, found at his home in Indiana on January 16. Pence had "about a dozen" classified documents from his time as VP, and subsequently turned them over to the FBI.
New via CNN: 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.
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) January 24, 2023
As CNN explained in its report based on "sources" —
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.
In a twist, Pence had said in previous interviews that he did not have any classified documents in his possession from his four years as VP to Trump.
CNN's report continued:
Pence asked his lawyer to conduct the search of his home out of an abundance of caution, and the attorney began going through four boxes stored at Pence’s house last week, finding a small number of documents with classified markings, the sources said.
Pence’s lawyer immediately alerted the National Archives, the sources said. In turn, the Archives informed the Justice Department.
A lawyer for Pence told CNN that the FBI requested to pick up the documents with classified markings that evening, and Pence agreed. Agents from the FBI’s field office in Indianapolis picked up the documents from Pence’s home, the lawyer said.
On Monday, Pence’s legal team drove the boxes back to Washington, DC, and handed them over to the Archives to review the rest of the material for compliance with the Presidential Records Act.
In a letter to the National Archives obtained by CNN, Pence’s representative to the Archives Greg Jacob wrote that a “small number of documents bearing classified markings” were inadvertently boxed and transported to the vice president’s home.
As Pence's representative to the Archives Greg Jacob explained to CNN, "Vice President Pence was unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence. Vice President Pence understands the high importance of protecting sensitive and classified information and stands ready and willing to cooperate fully with the National Archives and any appropriate inquiry," Jacob added.
It's worth noting that Pence, unlike Biden, made the discovery public almost immediately, whereas Biden withheld the information from the American people from early November before the 2022 midterms until the story finally broke via a leak to mainstream outlets.
In a post on Truth Social Tuesday afternoon, President Trump defended his VP. "Mike Pence is an innocent man," Trump said. "He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. Leave him alone!!!"
This is a developing story and may be updated.