Attorney General Merrick Garland has “multiple options” for handing an investigation into former Vice President Mike Pence’s improper retention of classified records, and former officials and legal experts said that he is “not obligated” to establish another special counsel. Pence informed Congress on Tuesday that he discovered documents with classified markings in his Carmel, Indiana, home on Jan. 16 from his time as vice president. Pence said Friday that he takes “full responsibility” after classified documents were found at his Indiana home. The Associated Press has the story:
Pence takes full responsibility for classified docs
Newslooks- MIAMI (AP)
Former Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that he takes “full responsibility” after classified documents were found at his Indiana home.
“Let me be clear about something: Those classified documents should not have been in my personal residence,” Pence said at in an appearance at Florida International University. “Mistakes were made.”
The discovery made public by Pence’s team earlier this week marked the latest in a string of recoveries of sensitive papers from the homes of current and former top U.S. officials. The Department of Justice was already investigating the discovery of classified documents in former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and at President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware and his former Washington office.
Pence said, “I take full responsibility” for the documents being in his possession. He said he had directed his counsel to work with the National Archives, Department of Justice and Congress and fully cooperate in any investigation.
Pence was at the university to talk about economic freedom and to sign copies of his new book, “So Help Me God.”
A lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence said that Documents with classified markings were discovered in former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana Home last week.
“The additional records appear to be 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,” Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, told the National Archives in a letter last week.
The FBI and the Justice Department’s National Security Division have launched a review of the documents and how they ended up in Pence’s house in Indiana.
