The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Search came after negotiations by his representatives, DOJ.
The FBI discovered an additional document with classified markings at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home during a search Friday, following the discovery by his lawyers last month of sensitive government documents there.
Pence adviser Devin O’malley said the Department of Justice completed “a thor- ough and unrestricted search of five hours” and removed “one document with classified markings and six additional pages without such markings that were not discovered in the initial review by the vice president’s counsel.”
The search, described as consensual after negotiations between Pence’s representatives and the Justice Department, comes after he was subpoenaed in a separate investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election and as Pence contemplates a Republican bid for the White House in 2024.
Pence is now the third cur- rent or former top U.S. official, joining Trump and President Joe Biden, to have their homes scoured by FBI agents for clas- sified records. The willingness of Pence and Biden to permit the FBI to search their homes, and to present themselves as fully cooperative, reflects a
desire by both to avoid the drama that enveloped Trump last year and resulted in the Justice Department having to get a warrant to inspect his Florida property.
Police blocked the road outside Pence’s neighbor- hood in Carmel, just north of Indianapolis, Friday after- noon as the FBI was inside the home. Agents were seen leav- ing shortly after 2 p.m. Pence and his wife were out of state, visiting family on the West Coast after births of their sec- ond and third grandchildren.
A member of Pence’s legal team was at the home during the search, and the FBI was given what was described as unrestricted access to search for documents with classified markings, documents that could be classified but with- out markings and any other documents subject to the Pres- idential Records Act.
O’malley said Pence has directed his legal team to continue to cooperate with the DO J and “to be fully trans- parent through the conclusion of this matter.”
The FBI had already taken possession of what Pence’s lawyer previously described as a “small number of docu- ments” “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Pence’s Indiana home at the end of the Trump administration.
The Justice Department did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Separate special counsels have been investigating the discovery of documents with clas- sification markings at Biden’s home in Delaware and his former Washington office, as well as Trump’s Florida estate. Officials are trying to determine whether Trump or anyone on his team crim- inally obstructed the probe
in refusing to turn over the documents before the FBI seizure. The FBI recovered more than 100 documents marked classified while serv- ing a search warrant at Mara-lago last August.
Circumstances of the Biden and Pence cases are markedly different from that of Trump.
Pence, according to his lawyer Greg Jacob, had requested a review by his attorneys of records stored at his home “out of an abundance of caution” during the uproar over the discovery of classified doc- uments at Biden’s home and former private office. When the Pence documents were discovered Jan. 16 among four boxes that had been trans- ferred to Pence’s home during the transition, Jacob said, they were secured in a locked safe and reported to the National Archives. FBI agents then col- lected them.