Pence won’t face charges in classified documents investigation
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has declined to pursue charges against former Vice President Mike Pence in its investigation into his retention of classified documents at his home in Indiana, informing him in a brief letter Thursday night, according to three people familiar with the situation.
Word that the case would be closed came days before Pence, 63, was set to announce his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in Iowa.
The FBI and the Justice Department’s national security division “conducted an investigation into the potential mishandling of classified information,” the department wrote to Pence’s lawyer, according to a person who had read the letter. Based on the results of that investigation, “no criminal charges will be sought,” that person said.
The decision served as a reminder of an enormously consequential plotline that remains unresolved as the 2024 election season gets underway.
The most important, by far, is the criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump and whether he sought to obstruct the inquiry now led by a special counsel, Jack Smith, after Trump and his aides repeatedly resisted efforts to return sensitive government documents. President Joe Biden is also under investigation by a special counsel, Robert K. Hur, over the improper retention of materials dating from his eight years as vice president — although Biden has been far more cooperative with investigators.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the Pence investigation. But Attorney General Merrick Garland did not deem the matter serious enough to appoint a special counsel in the case, as he had done for the investigations into Trump and Biden, senior law enforcement officials said.
For Pence, the decision represented bittersweet vindication, ending an embarrassing episode that had threatened his reputation.
From the start, Pence and his team cooperated with authorities, in stark contrast to Trump.
In January, a lawyer for Pence voluntarily searched the former vice president’s house in Carmel, Ind., for documents.
About a dozen documents with classified markings were “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Pence’s home, according to one of his aides at the time, and subsequently returned to the National Archives and Records Administration.
The FBI searched his home in February and found one additional classified document.