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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Friday is conducting a search of classified documents at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana residence after he agreed to it, local media reported.
According to CNN, which quoted a Pence spokesperson, he is out of Indiana as he is visiting the west coast with his family after his daughter gave birth.
A lawyer for the former vice president is present at the house while the search is being carried out.
In January, a Pence assistant found dozens of documents marked classified in his Indiana home after the former vice president asked him to conduct a search.
The papers were discovered last January 16 and one of the former vice president’s lawyers, Greg Jacob, notified Congress and the National Archives, the institution that has custody of sensitive and classified documents.
As the attorney explained to the National Archives, the documents were in Pence’s Indiana home by mistake.
Specifically, a “small number” of classified documents were allegedly “packed and transported” from the White House to the former vice president’s home without his knowledge.
In fact, the counsel emphasized, Pence “had no knowledge of the existence of classified or sensitive documents in his personal residence.”
Pence, who stood by Trump for most of his presidency (2017-2021), disassociated himself from him after the 2021 assault on Capitol Hill and after receiving pressure from the president to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Media outlets revealed Thursday that the Justice Department subpoenaed Pence to testify as part of special prosecutor Robert Hur’s investigation, which is developing inquiries into Trump’s efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election that led to the assault on Capitol Hill.
According to Fox News, Pence’s team decided to search the former vice president’s Indiana home and the office he has at the conservative think tank Advancing American Freedom after the revelations about Biden.
More! Trump in defense of Mike Pence over classified documents: “Leave him alone”
This month, it was uncovered that Biden’s team had found sensitive and classified documents from his time as Barack Obama’s vice president (2009-2017) and senator (1973-2009).
The documents were discovered at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and in his private office at the Penn Biden Center think tank in Washington.
The Biden administration has tried to disassociate itself from the case of the classified documents found by the FBI in Trump’s mansion in Mar-a-Lago (Florida).
