Former United States Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday he took no classified information with him when he left office.
Mr. Pence made the comment during an interview with theAssociated Press in Iowa a week and a half after the FBI seized classified and top secret information during a search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
When asked directly if he retained any classified information upon leaving office, Mike Pence replied, “No, not to my knowledge. »
The disclosure – which would typically be trivial for a former vice president – is significant given that FBI agents took 11 sets of classified documents from the property of his former boss on August 8 while investigating potential breaches. of three different federal statutes. Donald Trump claimed the documents seized by officers were “all declassified” and argued he would have turned them over if the Justice Department had asked.
Despite the presence of material marked “top secret” in the government’s list of items recovered from Mar-a-Lago, Mr Pence said: “Honestly, I don’t want to pass judgment until I know all the facts. »
On Friday, Pence also spoke about Republican Rep. Liz Cheney’s primary defeat earlier this week to a Trump-backed rival. Ms Cheney, who is arguably Mr Trump’s most prominent Republican critic, called the former president a “very serious threat and risk to our republic” and drew ire from the latter for his role as vice-president. Chair of the House of Representatives Committee to Investigate the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill Uprising.
“My reaction was, the people of Wyoming have spoken,” said Mr. Pence, who was targeted on Capitol Hill that day by angry rioters, some of whom shouted ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ And, you know, I accept their decision on what kind of representation they want on Capitol Hill. »
Mr. Pence said he had “great respect” for Ms. Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who served two terms under President George W. Bush.
“And I appreciate the conservative stance that Congresswoman Cheney has taken over the years,” Pence continued. But I was disappointed by the partisan aspect of the January 6 commission from the start. »
Speaking in more detail about the Mar-a-Lago raid, the former vice president raised the possibility, as he has in the past, that the investigation was politically motivated and called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to release more details about what led authorities to conduct the search.
“The anxiety felt by millions of Americans will only be resolved with the light of day,” Mike Pence said Friday. I know that’s unusual in an investigation. But this is an unprecedented action by the Department of Justice, and I think it deserves unprecedented transparency. »
A few days ago, while speaking at a policy breakfast in New Hampshire, Mr Pence urged fellow Republicans to stop attacking FBI members over the raid of Mar-a-Lago. At Wednesday’s event, he sought to mitigate some of the growing threats to the FBI from ardent supporters of Donald Trump, who are furious that his home was searched.
“The Republican Party is the party of law and order,” Pence said Wednesday, adding that the party always stands with those who enforce the law. He said these attacks on the FBI must stop.
Mike Pence was in Iowa on Friday as part of a two-day trip to the state, which is expected to host the first Republican presidential caucuses of 2024. Mr. Pence said Friday that he would make a decision early in the next year on whether to run for the White House, a decision his aides say will be independent of what Donald Trump decides to do.
After visiting the Iowa State Fair on Friday afternoon, Mr. Pence also headlined a fundraiser earlier in the day for Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and was to address a conservative Christian group as well as another Northern Iowa Republican Party fundraising group before leaving on Saturday.