A lawyer for Republican Mike Pence, who served as vice president during the Donald Trump administration (2017-2021), found a “small number” of documents marked classified in the home of the former vice president of the United States last week and handed them over to the FBI, a congressman reported Tuesday.
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Mike Pence “had briefed us today (Tuesday) on classified documents found at his home in Indiana,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican, said in a statement.
He added that Pence, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, has agreed to “fully cooperate” with any congressional investigation.
The new find would make the Republican politician the latest high-level official to find himself embroiled in a scandal with the Department of Justice American due to the discovery of classified information in his personal possession.
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Pence discovered those documents on January 16 and one of his lawyers, Greg Jacob, notified Congress and the National Archives, the institution that has custody of sensitive and classified documents.
As explained by Pence’s lawyer to the National Archivesthe documents were at the former vice president’s home in Indiana by mistake.
Specifically, a “small number” of classified documents were “packaged and transported” from the White House to the former vice president’s home without his knowledge.
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In fact, as the lawyer emphasized, Pence “was not aware of the existence of classified or sensitive documents in his personal residence.”
Pence, who stood by Trump for most of his Presidency, distanced himself from him after the 2021 assault on the Capitol and after being pressured by the president to annul Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 elections.
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Now, Pence is shaping up to be one of the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination and has published an autobiography entitled “So help me God” (With the help of God).
According to the Fox network, Pence’s team decided to search the former vice president’s home in Indiana and his office at the conservative think tank “Advancing American Freedom” after the revelations about Biden.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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