t
he FBI is expected to search former Vice President Mike Pence‘s Indiana home for classified material in the coming days, according to people familiar with the matter, as senior government officials come under increased law-enforcement scrutiny of their handling of such documents.
The Justice Department is in talks with Mr. Pence’s legal team about scheduling the search, the people said.
Last month, following similar revelations from President Biden’s legal team, Mr. Pence’s lawyers disclosed they had discovered several documents with classification markings at his home and turned them over to authorities. They said the documents had been inadvertently packed up and transported and that Mr. Pence was unaware of their existence.
Both disclosures came as the Justice Department has been investigating former President Donald Trump over the handling of classified material after he left the White House at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents collected documents from Mr. Pence’s Indiana home on Jan. 19 at the request of the Justice Department, according to a letter from Mr. Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, sent to the National Archives dated Jan. 22. Mr. Pence agreed to the transfer, the letter said. Agents haven’t yet undertaken a search of their own there.
A person close to Mr. Pence said his legal team considered their earlier search exhaustive and doesn’t believe additional classified documents exist there.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the FBI’s Indianapolis field office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Justice Department probes have effectively put on hold the Senate Intelligence Committee’s attempts to exercise oversight of the handling and mishandling of classified information.
