The raid came weeks after Pence and his legal team turned over classified documents to the FBI.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has searched the home of former Vice President Mike Pence in what is believed to be part of an investigation into classified records.
Domestic intelligence agencies conducted a search of Pence’s home in Indiana on Friday, weeks after his attorney Greg Jacobs informed the National Archives that potentially classified files had been leaked. Discovered at the National Archives Office. residence. The documents were handed over to the FBI.
“Let me be clear: Those classified documents shouldn’t be in my own home,” Pence said at Florida International University last week. “Mistakes have been made, and I take full responsibility.”
Pence’s lawyers say a “small amount” of classified documents were “accidentally boxed and shipped” to his home after his vice-presidential term ended.
Friday’s raid came after communication between the FBI and Pence’s attorney, who said they expected the search to take several hours.
The search comes the same way President Donald Trump and now President Joe Biden are also facing investigations into the retention of classified documents while they are no longer in office.
Biden served as a member of the US Senate, then vice president under the Obama administration, before being elected president in 2020. Secret documents from previous roles were discovered at home. Biden’s office in Delaware, as well as the office he uses in Washington, Washington. DC, advisor.
While documents became a political issue As for Biden, the White House has sought to contrast Biden’s cooperation with the response of former President Trump, who allegedly refused to turn over classified documents stored at the Mar-a-Lago resort. his in Florida.
Investigators are working to determine whether Trump or his legal team obstructed the federal investigation by withholding documents. Special counsel Jack Smith is leading the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents, while a second special counsel, Robert Hur, has been appointed to investigate Biden.
coin seen as a potential Republican candidate for the 2024 election, which could pit him against his former boss Trump – who announced his candidacy — and the current president, who has yet to announce whether he will run for re-election.
Some of the documents recovered at Pence’s home are believed to have come from his office drawer at the White House. The others came from the vice president’s home in the Naval Observatory.
However, Pence said that, when he turned over the documents to the administration, he was “acting on politics and putting the national interest first”.
