by Washington Dirk Hautkapp
After former President Donald Trump and his successor Joe Biden, a third former high-ranking member of the US government has been involved in a scandal over secret documents since yesterday. As it became known on Tuesday afternoon (local time), a lawyer for Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, discovered a dozen papers marked as classified in his private home in the US state of Indiana.
Nothing is known about the contents of the documents. Like Trump, Pence left the elected government in early 2021. It is being investigated whether sensitive documents were improperly withheld from the National Archives beforehand.
FBI under investigation
Pence, who is flirting with a candidacy for the 2024 presidential election and has completely fallen out with Trump, was questioned last November when the Trump documents scandal, including the Mar-a-Lago/Florida attack, was headline, if he also has in his possession documents relating to national security matters. At the time, Pence told ABC on camera, “No, I don’t.”
As several US media report, documents seized from Pence’s home are being examined by the Department of Justice and the FBI. Federal law enforcement officers picked up the papers in Indiana last week.
Trump and Biden were given independently assigned special investigators to investigate possible crimes on behalf of the Department of Justice.