Federal law enforcement officials are planning to search the home of former Vice President Mike Pence in the coming days after Pence’s legal team found classified material inside the residence last month, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Pence directed his team to search his home in Indiana and office at his political advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom (AAF), following revelations that classified documents had been discovered in Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center, a Washington think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. No classified papers turned up in the search of Pence’s offices at AAF.
The former vice president informed the National Archives of the discovery of classified government documents at his home on January 18, and the National Archives then informed the FBI about the discovery. The FBI later collected the material found at Pence’s home.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department was currently in talks with Pence to schedule a time to search the residence in the very near future.
The Justice Department has active criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden over their handling of classified material.
Classified documents connected with Biden were first found in his former private office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C., on November 2, less than a week before the 2022 midterm elections. Since then, Biden’s attorneys have located more classified documents at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, on multiple occasions: an unspecified number found in the garage on December 20, one document found in Biden’s study on January 11, and five more found in the study on January 12.
Federal officials confirmed two weeks ago that they found more classified material during a 13-hour FBI search of Biden’s home on January 20.
CNN reported last week that while Biden’s team claimed it was cooperative in dealing with the Department of Justice, federal investigators were prepared to get a search warrant if Biden did not consent to being searched.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur — who served during the Trump administration — to serve as special counsel in the investigation after the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch, who was assigned to do an initial review of the case, recommended to Garland that a special counsel be appointed.
Tim Pearce contributed to this report.