© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence gives a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, U.S., October 19, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis
By Sarah N. Lynch and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The FBI recovered an additional government page with classified markings during a consensual search on Friday at the Indianapolis residence of former Vice President Mike Pence, after classified documents were discovered at his home last month, a spokesman for the FBI said. pence.
The search, confirmed earlier in the day by a Justice Department official, came after Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacobs, notified the National Archives in a January 18 letter about the discovery of records with classified marks. The records were then turned over to the FBI.
“Pence and his legal team have fully cooperated with the proper authorities,” his spokesman Devin O’Malley said.
In addition to locating a page with classified marks, the FBI also recovered “six additional pages without such marks that were not discovered in the initial review by the vice president’s attorney,” it added.
Neither Pence nor his wife were home during the search, but a member of his legal team was present and the Justice Department was given full access to the home.
Earlier in the day, a media crowd gathered outside the home as the search took place, and ABC News footage could see a police car blocking the driveway of Pence’s home.
The raid on Pence’s home comes as former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden face investigations by two special counsel over the withholding of classified records.
Special counsel Jack Smith is investigating whether Trump or his associates may have obstructed the Justice Department’s investigation into his withholding of thousands of government records, several hundred of which were marked as classified, after he left the White House in January 2021.
The FBI conducted a court-approved search of Trump’s Florida property on August 8, where it collected about 13,000 records, about 100 of which contained classified marks.
Separately, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Robert Hur in January after Biden’s legal team disclosed that it discovered classified documents in November at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank from the University of Pennsylvania. Biden had an office there after he served as Barack Obama’s vice president and before his presidential election.
Since then, additional searches have also been found at Biden’s Wilmington residence.
A third search of Biden’s Delaware beach home earlier this month turned up no additional documents.