© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence delivers 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 found another classified government page during a consent search on Friday at the Indianapolis residence of former Vice President Mike Pence, after classified documents were discovered at his home last month, Pence’s spokesman said.
The search, which a Justice Department official confirmed earlier in the day, came after Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacobs, notified the National Archives in a Jan. 18 letter of the discovery of classified records. The records were then turned over to the FBI.
“Pence and his legal team have cooperated fully with the appropriate authorities,” said his spokesman Devin O’Malley.
In addition to locating one classified page, the FBI also found “six additional unclassified pages that were not detected in the initial review by the vice president’s counsel,” he 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, scores of media outlets gathered outside the home as the search continued, and ABC News footage showed a police car blocking the driveway of Pence’s home.
The search of Pence’s home comes as former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden face investigations by two special prosecutors over the withholding of classified records.
Special counsel Jack Smith is investigating whether Trump or his associates may have obstructed a Justice Department investigation into his retention of thousands of government records, several hundred of which were classified as classified, after he left the White House in January 2021.
On August 8, the FBI conducted a court-authorized search of Trump’s property in Florida, where they collected about 13,000 records, about 100 of which contained classified information.
Separately, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special prosecutor Robert Hur in January, after Biden’s legal team revealed they had uncovered classified documents in November at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a University of Pennsylvania think tank. Biden had an office there after serving as vice president under Barack Obama and before his presidential run.
Since then, additional records have also been found at Biden’s residence in Wilmington.
A third search of Biden’s beach house in Delaware earlier this month turned up no additional documents.