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Vice President of the USA under Donald Trump: Republican Mike Pence
Photo: Stephen M. Dowell/AP
Secret documents were discovered in the home of former Vice President Mike Pence in Indiana last week.
"The additional papers appear to be a small number of classified-marked documents that were accidentally boxed and taken to the former Vice President's private home at the end of his last term," Pence's attorney, Greg Jacob, wrote in last week a letter to the National Archives.
Jacob further shared that "Pence was not aware of the existence of any sensitive or classified documents in his personal residence" and that he "understands the great importance of protecting sensitive and classified information."
He was also willing to "fully cooperate with the National Archives and any appropriate investigation."
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment Tuesday, the AP news agency reported.
However, the FBI and the Justice Department have already launched an investigation, CNN reported.
Pence had ruled out taking secret files
Pence said in the summer after secret files were found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home that he had not taken any classified documents with him when he left office.
When asked directly whether he had kept classified information when he left office, Pence told the AP news agency: "No, not to my knowledge".
The United States does not allow private storage of confidential government records after leaving office.
The National Archives are responsible for this.
Secret documents have been discovered in recent months both on incumbent US President Joe Biden and on his predecessor Donald Trump.
Both have been heavily criticized ever since.
The Justice Department claims Trump took hundreds of documents marked as classified when he left the White House in early 2021 and for months resisted requests to return them to the government.
Biden had willingly turned over the documents as soon as they were found.
Nevertheless, the topic also weighs heavily on Biden and his advisers.
col/AP/Reuters