And now, Mike Pence.
First there were the papers of Donald Trump: more than 300 classified documents that, not to be forgotten, the former president deliberately took from the White House and hid in his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida; until the FBI went in there in August and confiscated the hundred-plus he hadn't returned.
Then, two weeks ago, we learned that lawyers for President Joe Biden had found a dozen secret records, from his time as vice president, in the office he opened in Washington in 2017 after his term as number two to Barack Obama. The finding dated from November 2, six days before the mid-term legislative elections, but the White House took 68 days to count it. And he also belatedly reported further discoveries of more documents – up to more than 20, and already including Biden's time as a senator – in the president's garage and home in Wilmington.
And yesterday, more papers; this time in the house that he has in Indiana, former vice president Mike Pence, the last number two of Donald Trump; the one who refused to execute his request to annul the results of the 2020 presidential elections by suspending their ratification in Congress; an honorable refusal that made the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol that day ask for his head: “Hang Pence!” they shouted.
A lawyer for the former vice president, who today is considered one of Trump's main rivals in the Republican Party and a possible competitor to him in the 2024 presidential primaries, discovered about a dozen secret documents in that Indiana house last week. .
Pence's representative, Greg Jacob, notified the National Archives entity - where the material should have been deposited - that "a small number of documents with classified marks" had been inadvertently packed and transported to the former vice president's home. According to Pence, Archives notified the Department of Justice, and this body, the FBI, which immediately collected the papers for review.
The former vice president had repeatedly said that he did not keep any documents. But he must not have been entirely sure, since it was he himself who, following the findings in Biden's offices, asked his lawyers to review the documentation he had in Indiana. This Tuesday the content, time and level of sensitivity of the papers were not yet clear.
Pence reported the finding to Congress, promptly. “Former Vice President Mike Pence briefed us today on the discovery of classified documents at his Indiana home,” Republican James Comer, who is overseeing a House investigation into the Biden papers, said in a statement. not of Trump's because "they are not a priority," he said a few days ago without consideration.
Mike Pence “agrees to cooperate fully with Congressional investigations,” Comer added. And, in an attempt to turn the new scandal against the Democratic president, he also said that "the transparency of the former vice president contrasts with the attitude of Joe Biden's collaborators in the White House, who continue to hide information."
The scandal of the papers may lead to rethinking the handling and the very classification of confidential information in the US The documents thus marked number in the millions. And political scientists, historians and academics wonder if the government and its agencies are not sorting through an excessive and unmanageable amount of records.
That apart from the jokes that already run about "who does not have", in Washington, classified papers in his house
