CNN reported Tuesday that a lawyer for former Vice President Pence had discovered about a dozen documents marked classified at his Carmel, Indiana home.
The FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) have reportedly launched a review of the documents and how they ended up in the former Vice President’s residence.
The revelation comes in the wake of discoveries of classified materials at President Biden’s private office and residence. Biden voluntarily agreed to an FBI search on Friday of his home in Wilmington, DE, which uncovered another six items in addition to the materials previously found at the residence and his private office.
The revelation that Pence had classified materials at his residence also comes after Attorney General Merrick Garland in November appointed veteran career prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel to determine, among his duties, whether criminal charges should be brought against former President Trump over his actions following an August FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago residence that uncovered hundreds of documents marked classified.
Garland has also appointed a special counsel, former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur, in the Biden case.
On November 15, ABC News anchor David Muir asked Pence, “Did you take any classified documents with you from the White House?”
Pence replied, “I did not.”
Last week, Pence said on Fox Business that, while in office, he received the President’s Daily Brief at the Vice President’s residence.
“I’d rise early. I’d go to the safe where my military aide would place those classified materials. I’d pull them out, review them,” he said. “I’d receive a presentation to them and then, frankly, more often than not, I would simply return them back to the file that I’d received them in.”
He added, “They went in commonly into what was called a burn bag that my military aide would gather and then destroy those classified materials—same goes in materials that I would receive at the White House.”
