Besides the ‘small number’ of classified documents, Pence aides found vice-presidential records that evidently had not been logged with the National Archives.
Besides the ‘small number’ of classified documents, Pence aides found vice-presidential records that evidently had not been logged with the National Archives.
B ack in the Clinton days, the president’s apologists used to say, “Everybody does it.”
While everybody, in fact, did not engage in sexual hijinks in the White House with an intern, this line of defense may find traction in the expanding classified-information scandal. Fox News is reporting that classified documents have been found in the Indiana home of former Trump-administration vice president Mike Pence.
Pence has recently caused searches for classified records to be undertaken at his home in Carmel, Ind., and his private office at Advancing American Freedom, his political-advocacy group (which, best as I can tell, is in Indianapolis, though it has a Washington phone number).
The searches happened sometime after the news broke on January 9 that classified information had been found in the private office that President Biden maintained at a Washington think tank, a revelation that was followed in the ensuing days by disclosures that classified intelligence had been found in locations in Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home — in his garage, his den, and perhaps other rooms (the FBI has not disclosed where in the home it found the classified documents it recovered in a search on Friday).
Pence’s spokespeople are saying that a “small number” of documents bearing classification markings “were found” in “two small boxes.” The former vice president seems to be quibbling about whether, technically speaking, the documents are classified — he says that can’t be determined for sure until the intelligence agencies that originally classified the documents confirm that they remain classified. Nevertheless, the former vice president offers no reason to believe that any authorized person declassified the documents he was retaining in his home, apparently without legal authorization.
Vice presidents do not have general declassification authority, as does the president. The veep is authorized to declassify only information that the veep himself has classified (as what’s known as an authorized classification “originator”). That tends to be an infinitesimal amount of information because vice presidents are mainly consumers of classified information — they do not collect and classify intelligence, as the CIA and FBI do.
It is not clear from the Fox News report exactly who conducted the search through Pence’s home and office, or whether whoever did it had security clearances. The documents are said to have been found eight days ago, on Monday, January 16. Fox relates that the Pence team says the documents “were put into a safe”; it is not clear who put them in said safe and whether that person had a security clearance.
The former vice president’s attorney, Greg Jacob (who was also his counsel in the White House) provided a written notification of the discovery to an official at the National Archives and Records Administration last Wednesday, January 18 — specifically, Kate Dillon McClure, the acting director of NARA’s White House Liaison Division. NARA alerted the FBI. The following evening — Thursday, January 19, while Pence was in Washington for the March for Life) — FBI agents came to Pence’s home and collected the documents.
This past Sunday (January 22), Jacob wrote to NARA’s chief operating officer, William “Jay” Bosanko, to note that the direct transmission of the apparently classified documents to the Justice Department (via the FBI) marked a departure from the procedure NARA followed in connection with the initial discovery of classified information in Biden’s private office.
As I’ve detailed, when Biden’s private counsel found classified documents at the president’s private office in the Penn Biden Center in Washington on November 2, the lawyers notified the Biden White House, which arranged to have NARA officials pick up the documents. Subsequently, the NARA inspector general notified the Justice Department. Thereafter, once Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned a prosecutor to conduct a preliminary investigation of Biden’s mishandling of classified information (namely, Chicago U.S. attorney John R. Lausch Jr.), the Justice Department was directly notified when subsequent discoveries were made by Biden’s private lawyers. Those lawyers do not have security clearances.
Besides the “small number” of classified documents, Pence aides also found vice-presidential records that evidently had not been logged with NARA, as required by the Presidential Records Act. Those documents are said to have since been driven from Indiana to the National Archives in Washington.
Fox reports that no classified documents were found in the search of Pence’s Advancing American Freedom office.
Immediately after it was reported that classified documents had been found in Biden’s private office and home, Pence decried what he portrayed as the “double standard” under which the former president he served, Donald Trump, was subjected to the coercive execution of a search warrant, while Biden was not.
Pence opined that it was a “massive overreach” to have the FBI search Trump’s estate; he did not appear to be recommending that the “double standard” be ameliorated by having all current and former officials subjected to search warrants if they were suspected of mishandling classified information. Pence did not address the facts that Trump had opposed government retrieval efforts of over 18 months and had defied a grand-jury subpoena, prior to the August 8 execution of the search warrant. Yet Pence did say he found it “incredibly frustrating” that Biden had not been treated the same way Trump was treated.