A lawyer for former vice president Mike Pence conducted a search of his Indiana home and found about a dozen documents marked as classified, then turned them over to the FBI for review.
Classified documents found at the home of Mike Pence
Last week, in the wake of ongoing classified material being discovered at Joe Biden’s residence and former office, an attorney for Mike Pence conducted a proactive search of the former Vice President’s home in Carmel, Indiana, ABC reported.
Despite Pence repeatedly stating he did not have any classified documents in his possession, his lawyer found about a dozen documents marked as classified at the ex-VP’s home.
Attorneys conducting the search for Pence said they found “a small number of documents that could potentially contain sensitive or classified information interspersed throughout the records.”
According to Pence’s lawyer, the National Archives were notified that a small number of documents were “inadvertently boxed and transported” to the former vice president’s home at the end of the last administration, The Hill reported.
The lawyer said they were unable to provide an exact number of the documents recovered or additional descriptions of the materials because all were locked away until they could be handed over to the National Archives.
Pence was “unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence,” his attorney wrote in a letter to the Archives.
Pence’s lawyer further told the archives that they used outside counsel with experience handling classified documents to review the records stored at the former vice president’s home
Following the discovery, the attorney turned the classified records over to the FBI, according to multiple sources who were familiar with the matter and spoke to CNN.
The documents found at Pence’s home are currently undergoing a review by the Department of Justice’s National Security Division and the FBI, the sources said.
Fact check: Do vice presidents have the power to declassify documents?
In the wake of the discovery of up to 30 documents in the possession of Joe Biden, all reportedly stemming from his tenure as vice president, former President Trump stated that, as VP, Biden didn’t “have the right to declassify” documents.
However, numerous fact-checking sources say that vice presidents do have that right.
A March 2003 Executive Order issued by then-President Bush, E.O. 13292 on classified national security information, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) reported.
Section 1.3 of the order states: “The authority to classify information originally may be exercised only by: (1) the President and, in the performance of executive duties, the Vice President; (2) agency heads and officials designated by the President in the Federal Register…”
In 2009, then-President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13526, titled “Classified National Security Information.” The order authorizes the vice president to both classify and declassify documents, according to PolitiFact.
However, it should be noted that experts stress that some ambiguity remains on the vice president’s ability to declassify documents that were previously classified by other agencies. Experts remain divided because this authority has yet to be tested in a real-world situation.
