FBI searches former US VP Pence’s home for classified documents | Politics News

The raid comes several weeks after Pence and his legal team turned over classified documents to the FBI.

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has searched the home of former Vice President Mike Pence in what is reportedly part of a classified records probe.

The domestic intelligence agency carried out the consensual search of Pence’s Indiana home on Friday, several weeks after his lawyer Greg Jacobs informed the National Archives that records with classified markings had been discovered at the residence. The documents were handed over to the FBI.

“Let me be clear: Those classified documents should not have been in my personal residence,” Pence said at Florida International University last week. “Mistakes were made, and I take full responsibility.”

Pence’s lawyers said that a “small number” of classified documents had been “inadvertently boxed and transported” to his home after his tenure as vice president had ended.

Friday’s raid took place after communication between the FBI and Pence’s lawyers, who said they expected the search to take several hours.

The search came as former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden were also facing investigations over their retention of classified documents during periods when they were no longer in office.

Biden served as a member of the US Senate, then as vice president during the Obama administration, before being elected president in 2020. Classified documents from those previous roles were discovered in Biden’s Delaware home, as well as an office he used at a Washington, DC, think tank.

While the documents have become a political issue for Biden, the White House has sought to contrast Biden’s cooperation with the response of former President Trump, who is alleged to have resisted handing over classified documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Investigators are working to determine whether Trump or his legal team obstructed a federal probe by withholding the materials. 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 look into Biden.

Pence is seen as a potential Republican candidate for the 2024 election, which could pit him against his former boss Trump — who has already announced his candidacy — and the current president, who has yet to declare whether he is running for reelection.

Some of the documents recovered at Pence’s house reportedly came from his office drawer at the White House. Others were from the home of the vice president in the Naval Observatory.

However, Pence said that, in turning the documents over to authorities, he had “acted above politics and put national interests first”.