Former President Donald Trump defended his former vice president on Tuesday after news broke that classified documents had been found at Mike Pence’s home in Indiana.
“Mike Pence is an innocent man. He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. Leave him alone!!!” Trump posted on his social media site, Truth Social.
An attorney for former Vice President Pence found about a dozen documents marked classified at his residence last week. The documents have since been handed over to the FBI.
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 President Joe Biden’s former personal office at the Penn Biden Center, a Washington think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, and at his Delaware home. No classified papers turned up in the search of Pence’s offices at AAF, according to Fox News.
It’s unclear what sensitivity level the documents found at Pence’s home were marked as, or what information was contained within them.
Trump is under investigation by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith for boxes of documents marked classified and recovered by the FBI in an August 2022 raid on Trump’s Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago. Biden is also under special counsel investigation for his own handling of classified documents.
Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped attorney Robert Hur to serve as special counsel and take over the DOJ’s investigation into Biden earlier this month.
Biden’s personal attorneys first found classified documents at the Penn Biden Center in early November, days before the 2022 midterm elections. Biden’s team found more documents stored in the garage of the president’s home in Wilmington in December. Subsequent searches of the home revealed more classified documents at the home on at least three occasions.
The latest discovery of sensitive materials at Biden’s home came on Friday after the FBI conducted an official search of the residence. Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, announced the findings of the search.
“DOJ took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President. DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years,” Bauer said in a statement.