More records have been discovered at former VP Mike Pence’s home.
Last year, the FBI executed an “unannounced” raid at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. It was the first time in United States history that the agency had raided the home of a former president, and it happened because there was serious cause to believe a crime has been committed.
The agency recovered hundreds of documents from the resort, some so sensitive that agents needed additional security clearance to handle them. Trump has been wrestling with the Department of Justice ever since, resorting to every possible means of holding up its criminal probe.
President Biden was strenuously critical of Trump. Then, about 10 classified documents were found by Biden’s attorneys at his former place of work — a Washington, D.C. think tank called the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. A small number were then discovered in his Wilmington, Delaware home.
One major difference between the cases was that unlike in Trump’s case, Biden’s lawyers not only found the (far smaller) number of documents (from his time as VP, not President) — they alerted the National Archives immediately, and are cooperating fully with the Justice Department.
To complicate matters even further, even more classified documents were discovered in former VP Mike Pence’s home in mid-January (we have more on that below). It’s potentially good news for Trump, whose legal team reportedly feels that the more people who are implicated, the harder it will be to bring criminal charges against any of them.
That’s the surface-level story. But there’s so much more to dig into. How much of the fallout for Biden and Trump is political, and how much is legal? Does the far more serious nature of Trump’s situation meet the standard of gross negligence? Where does Mike Pence stand? How does the degree of cooperation with law enforcement play into their potential liability? And does that even matter, when there’s so much PR spin going on?
Former U.S. Acting Solicitor General, Supreme Court lawyer and law professor Neal Katyal explains all of this, and more, below.
Classified documents discovered at Mike Pence’s home
A lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence has discovered about a dozen classified documents at his Indiana home, alerted the National Archives, and handed them over to the FBI, sources told CNN.
It’s an awkward turn of events for Pence, who has repeatedly claimed that he has none in his possession — and is thought by many to be readying himself for the race to become the Republican’s 2024 presidential candidate.
It’s unknown what the records are in relation to, or what the level of security around them is, but the FBI and the Justice Department’s National Security Division are launching a review of them, and how they came to be in Pence’s home.
A representative for Pence, Greg Jacobs, has claimed that only a “small number” of records were accidentally sent to Pence’s home.
Jacobs wrote to the National Archives in a letter seen by CNN: “Vice President Pence was unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence. Vice President Pence understands the high importance of protecting sensitive and classified information and stands ready and willing to cooperate fully with the National Archives and any appropriate inquiry.”
