Former President Donald Trump defended former Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday, after classified documents were found at Pence’s home in Indiana.
“Mike Pence is an innocent man. He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. Leave him alone!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on Jan. 24.
Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, told the National Archives and Records Administration in a Jan. 18 letter that a “small number of documents” marked classified were found at Pence’s Indiana home two days earlier. The documents were “inadvertently boxed and transported” to the former vice president’s home at the end of the Trump–Pence administration.
The discovery came after Pence engaged outside counsel to review records stored at his residence, according to Jacob, who added that the classified documents were “immediately secured” in a locked safe.
“Vice President understands the high importance of protecting sensitive and classified information and stands ready and willing to cooperate fully with the National Archives and any appropriate inquiry,” Jacob wrote.
FBI agents visited Pence’s residence on Jan. 19 and collected the documents that had been secured, according to Jacob. At the time, Pence was in Washington to attend the March for Life rally.
The discovery of classified documents at Pence’s home came on the heel of investigations by the Department of Justice over classified documents found in President Joe Biden’s Delaware home and his former office space in Washington, as well as in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not comment on Tuesday when a reporter asked if the White House had any reaction to Pence’s documents.
“I’m not going to comment on any ongoing criminal investigation or any investigation,” she said. “As you all know, the Department of Justice is independent, and we will not politically interfere.”
Congress
The news of the discovery of classified documents at Pence’s residence has generated mixed responses from lawmakers.
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a statement saying that Pence has agreed to work with congressional oversight.
By Frank Fang
