By Michael Kosnar and Dareh Gregorian -
NBC News
The FBI is searching the Indiana residence of Mike Pence on Friday for classified documents, an official told NBC News, after the former president reported in January the discovery of "a small number" of secret papers.
Pence's lawyers reported in a letter sent to the National Archives on January 16 that a search was made of the former vice president's residence after the discovery of classified documents at the home of the president, Joe Biden, in Wilmington, Delaware, and in some offices he used in Washington DC
Greg Jacob, Pence's attorney, said the documents were "inadvertently packaged and transported" to Pence's home at the end of the Donald Trump Administration and that the former vice president was "unaware of the existence of any confidential or classified documents." at his personal residence.
The FBI searched a Biden office for the classified papers.
No search warrant required
Jan 31, 202300:35
The FBI searched Biden's home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, last week and found no classified documents, Biden's personal attorney Bob Bauer said.
Previously, he conducted a search of the offices of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement because classified documents were discovered there on November 2, NBC News reported.
The discovery of documents in the houses of Biden and Pence occurred after the Department of Justice launched an investigation against former President Donald Trump, discovering that he had a hundred secret files at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The National Archives has asked all former presidents and vice presidents to check their residences and offices for classified government documents in their possession.
The objective is to comply with the Presidential Documents Law, which establishes that all documents created or received by the president are the property of the Government and will be administered by the National Archives at the end of his term.
These are the former officials who were asked to check if they have classified documents
Jan 27, 202302:17
The handling of classified documents has already been an on-and-off problem for decades, but it has grown in importance since Trump deliberately withheld classified material at his Florida mansion, prompting an unprecedented FBI raid that seized thousands of pages of files last year. past.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special investigator to look into how Trump and Biden handled classified documents.