The Department of Justice (DOJ) recovered “one document with classified markings” and six additional pages with no classified markings from former Vice President Mike Pence’s home on Friday, Pence adviser Devin O’Malley told the Daily Caller.
The DOJ’s unrestricted search was consensual, took five hours, and was conducted after a “small number of potentially classified documents that had inadvertently been transported to his home in Indiana” were discovered in January, O’Malley said.
“The vice president has directed his legal team to continue its cooperation with appropriate authorities and to be fully transparent through the conclusion of this matter,” he added.
Pence and his wife were not present at their property at the time of the search due to being with their family on the West Coast, but a member of Pence’s legal team was present throughout the search, a person familiar told the Caller.
“The search’s scope terms included not only documents with classified markings and documents that may be classified without such markings, but also documents that DOJ believed might be original Presidential Record Act documents,” the person familiar added.
Pence “engaged outside counsel” to look for classified documents in his home following reports that President Joe Biden’s lawyers found classified documents at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2 and the president’s Delaware home Dec. 20, Jan. 11, Jan. 12 and Jan. 20, a letter sent by Pence’s team to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) read.
Pence’s team found classified documents at his residence in January and contacted NARA on Jan. 18, requesting assistance to collect and transfer a “small number of classified documents bearing classification markings.” (RELATED: Classified Documents Found At Mike Pence’s Home)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 30: (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
The Department of Justice (DOJ) sent FBI agents to collect the documents with Pence’s permission on Jan. 19, when he was attending the March for Life in Washington, D.C., Pence’s team said in the letter.
The FBI coming to collect the documents “bypassed standard procedure,” the letter stated, noting that Pence had agreed to give the documents to NARA directly.