US investigators end probe into former VP Pence classified docs
The lack of charges in the investigation takes away a headache for Pence ahead of his anticipated presidential campaign launch.
The US Department of Justice has ended an investigation into the handling of classified documents found in former Vice President Mike Pence’s home without filing any charges.
The move, reported by US media Friday, has removed at least one legal woe for Pence ahead of the expected announcement next week that he will run for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election.
Pence’s entry into the race would give the staunch religious conservative view of his former boss and current front-runner Donald Trump, as well as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
In a tweet on Friday, Noah Bookbinder, president of the Washington watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, called the Justice Department’s decision not to charge Pence “appropriate” since only a few documents had been recovered.
“He apparently knew nothing about it and he cooperated fully with the investigation, which is a stark contrast to Donald Trump,” he said.
Classified documents also at Trump, Biden houses
In January, Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacob, notified federal authorities that the former vice president had discovered classified documents at his home. Pence, Jacob said, was “unaware” of their existence and pledged to cooperate fully with the ensuing investigation.
But Pence isn’t the only major political figure to have been investigated over classified documents in recent months.
In November, lawyers for US President Joe Biden informed authorities that classified documents had been found in his Delaware residence, as well as in his office at the Penn Biden Center think tank in Washington, DC. The Department of Justice has also launched an investigation into that incident.
Prior to that, the department had launched an investigation into a series of classified documents recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, including about 33 containers containing 11,000 documents, at least 184 of which bore secret markings.
On Thursday, CNN reported that federal prosecutors obtained a 2021 audio recording of the former president acknowledging that he kept a secret Pentagon document about a possible attack on Iran after he left the White House.
The report undermines Trump’s claim that he released the documents before taking them.
An anticipated campaign launch
US media reported Wednesday that Pence is expected to announce his presidential bid on June 7.
While the end of the investigation removes a potential stumbling block, analysts said Pence’s bid is a gamble. A former governor of Indiana, he is well behind rivals Trump and DeSantis, averaging just 4 percent of support within the Republican party.
When Pence was tapped to be Trump’s running mate in their successful 2016 campaign, he was portrayed as a traditional conservative who would “balance” the ticket with his evangelical bona fides and wealth of political experience.
Although he was a loyal deputy to Trump during the presidency, Pence eventually broke through by resisting a pressure campaign to stop the certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory.
The move has made Pence a top target of Trump’s vocal base. When Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, some heard chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”
In April, Pence was ordered to testify before a federal grand jury investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the election results.
Pence has said, “History will hold Donald Trump to account.”