DOJ Searches Pence’s Office, Removes Three ‘Redacted’ Documents

Topline

Federal agents removed several “redacted” documents, but none with classified markings in a search of former Vice President Mike Pence’s public policy organization in Indianapolis on Friday, his spokesperson said, a week after the FBI discovered a classified record at his Indiana home as part of its probe into his handling of sensitive documents.

Former Vice President Mike Pence (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

Justice Department investigators removed a binder containing three “previously redacted” documents during an hours-long search of the Advancing America Freedom offices on Friday, multiple outlets reported, citing Pence spokesperson Devin O’Malley.

The documents are believed to include materials used in debate prep during the 2020 election, unnamed sources told The Hill and NBC.

O’Malley said Pence “has consistently cooperated with appropriate authorities,” and expressed confidence that the investigation would conclude in the “imminent” future.

Last week, the FBI found one classified record at Pence’s Indiana home in a search conducted after the former vice president’s lawyer discovered approximately 12 classified records there in mid-January.

Pence founded the political advocacy nonprofit in 2021 to promote the policies and platforms he helped shape during the Trump Administration—a move widely viewed as an early sign he was weighing a run for president in 2024.

Key Background

Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, revealed in late January that he found about a dozen documents with classified markings at the former vice president’s Indiana home, making Pence the latest potential 2024 presidential contender to face a Justice Department probe into their handling of classified documents. The FBI discovered more than 100 classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago club and private residence in a raid in August and has reportedly collected evidence to charge Trump with obstruction in the case, after the agency said Trump failed to comply with its subpoena and moved some records from a secure location where investigators instructed him to keep them. The White House also revealed in January that President Joe Biden’s legal team discovered approximately 10 classified records in his former office at the Penn Biden Center in November and at least six additional classified documents at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, in December and January, prompting a Justice Department investigation into the matter. The FBI searched Biden’s Wilmington home on January 20 and found six additional classified records, some dating back to his time as a U.S. senator.

Contra

Both Biden’s and Pence’s teams have said they are voluntarily cooperating with the Justice Department and were unaware that the classified documents were in their possession. Pence admitted that “mistakes were made” after the records were found at his home in January. Five months earlier, when asked by the Associated Press in August if he took any classified records with him when he left office, he said “no, not to my knowledge.” The documents discovered by Pence’s lawyer at his Carmel, Indiana, home were initially stored at his temporary home in Virginia before they were moved to his Indiana property. Weeks before the revelations that classified documents were discovered in Pence’s possession, he was one of many Republicans who criticized the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified records in comparison with its probe into Biden, claiming it amounted to a “double standard,” while calling the Justice Department’s August search of Trump’s property Palm Beach property a “gross overreach,” he told CBS.

Tangent

Pence said this week he plans to resist a Justice Department subpoena to testify in its probe into former Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol riot and Trump’s efforts to contest the results of the 2020 presidential election. Pence, calling the subpoena “unconstitutional” and “unprecedented,” told reporters he plans to claim legislative privilege in denying the subpoena request, because he was serving in his role as president of the Senate on January 6, 2021. At the time, Pence resisted pressure from Trump and his supporters to reject the Electoral College votes he was charged with certifying, a procedural responsibility of the vice president. The legislative privilege argument centers on a “speech and debate” clause in the Constitution that prohibits federal lawmakers from being questioned “in any other place” on “speech or debate” outside of official legislative duties.

What We Don’t Know

Whether Pence will run for president. He recently told CBS News, “I think we’ve got time . . . we’re going to continue to travel, we’re going to continue to listen,” when asked about a possible 2024 candidacy by CBS News in January.

DOJ Searches Pence’s Office, Removes Three ‘Redacted’ Documents—But No Classified Records