Classified documents found at Pence's Indiana home

A “small number of documents bearing classified markings that were inadvertently boxed and transported to the personal home of the former Vice President at the end of the last Administration” were collected by FBI officials from his Indiana home, according to letters from Pence’s representatives to the National Archives and Records Administration.

In a letter dated Jan. 18 to Kate Dillon McClure, the acting director of NARA’s White House Liaison Division, Greg Jacob, a spokesman for Pence, wrote the documents were discovered Jan. 16 when Pence, “out of an abundance of caution” following the classified documents recovered at the home of President Biden, “engaged outside counsel, with experience in handling classified documents, to review records stored in his personal home.”

Jacob said that the counsel identified a small number of documents that could potentially contain sensitive or classified information interspersed throughout the records, but added the counsel was unable to provide an exact description of the folders or briefing materials.

“Vice President Pence immediately secured those documents in a locked safe pending further direction on proper handling from the National Archives,” the letter stated.

Following this letter, the Justice Department on the evening of Jan. 19 requested “direct possession” of the letters and collected them from his safe late that evening.

“The transfer was facilitated by the Vice President’s personal attorney, who has experience in handling classified documents, and who conducted the prior review on January 16,” Jacob said in a second letter, this one addressed to William Bosanko, NARO’s chief operating officer.

This story will be updated.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.