After Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Mike Pence finds himself in turn swept up in the affair of the White House archives: the former Republican vice-president informed Congress on Tuesday January 24 of the discovery of documents classified confidential at his home. .

"Mike Pence today informed us of the discovery of classified documents at his Indiana home," influential Republican House Representative James Comer said in a statement.

The former vice-president of Donald Trump (2017-2021) "agrees to cooperate fully with the investigations of Congress", added the elected official, who oversees the parliamentary investigation opened after the discovery of files of this nature. with the Democratic President.

Mike Pence's attorney informed the National Archives of the discovery last week of "a small number of documents marked 'confidential' boxed and inadvertently transported to the former vice president's home in the end of the previous administration".

"Not up to date"

Mike Pence “was not aware of their existence” but had ordered a precautionary search of his belongings after the discovery of such documents at Joe Biden, added Me Greg Jacob in a letter reproduced in the American media. 

The ultra-conservative, who is toying with the idea of ​​running for president in 2024, "understands the importance of protecting sensitive information" and "immediately put these documents away in a safe" while awaiting their transfer to the National Archives, according to his lawyer.

In the United States, a 1978 law obliges American presidents and vice-presidents to transmit all their e-mails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives.

Another law, on espionage, prohibits the keeping of documents classified as confidential in unauthorized and unsecured places.

Special prosecutors

After leaks in the media, the White House has admitted that such files dating from the vice-presidency of Joe Biden, from 2009 to 2017, but also from his long career in the Senate had been discovered in one of its former offices in Washington. and in his family home in Wilmington (Delaware, east).

The case is embarrassing because the Democrats did not hesitate to criticize Donald Trump, the target of a judicial investigation for having kept whole boxes of documents when he left Washington in 2021. To recover them, the federal police had carried out this was a spectacular search of his Mar-a-Lago, Florida residence.

Anxious to silence suspicions of bias, the Department of Justice on January 13 entrusted the investigations into Joe Biden's files to an independent special prosecutor, as it had done in November for Donald Trump.

Asked by journalists during a press briefing on another subject, Minister Merrick Garland refused on Tuesday to comment on Mike Pence's file.

"Innocent"

Despite these precautions, Republicans continue to criticize the White House's dribbling communication.

Mike Pence's "transparency contrasts with the attitude of Joe Biden's collaborators (...), who continue to withhold information," said James Comer in his press release.

At a press conference, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called for "shed light" on this case.

"What was a political problem" for the Republicans, then for the Democrats, is now, according to him, "a national security problem for the country".

As for Donald Trump, he split a message of support for his former vice-president, with whom he has nevertheless been cold since the attack on the Capitol two years ago.

"Mike Pence is innocent, he has never done anything dishonest in his life. Leave him alone," wrote the billionaire, who will seek a new mandate in 2024, on his Truth Social network.

With AFP

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