The Justice Department removed one document with classified marking from Mike Pence's home following a "thorough and unrestricted search of five hours," a spokesman for the former vice president said in a statement.

What You Need To Know

  • The Justice Department removed one document with classified markings from former Vice President Mike Pence's home

  • They also removed "six additional pages without such markings that were not discovered in the initial review" following a "thorough and unrestricted search of five hours," a Pence spokesperson said in a statement

  • The search comes after documents with classified markings were discovered in Pence's home last month, the latest in a string of recoveries of sensitive papers from the homes of current and former top U.S. officials

"The Department of Justice completed a thorough and unrestricted search of five hours and removed one document with classified markings and six additional pages without such markings that were not discovered in the initial review by the vice president's counsel," a spokesperson for Pence said.

The search comes after documents with classified markings were discovered in Pence's home last month, the latest in a string of recoveries of sensitive papers from the homes of current and former top U.S. officials. The Department of Justice was already investigating the discovery of classified documents in former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and at President Joe Biden's home in Delaware and his former Washington office.

Pence’s case is very different from Trump’s. Pence, according to his lawyer, Greg Jacob, requested a review of records stored at his home “out of an abundance of caution” during the uproar over the discovery of classified documents at home and former private office. When the documents were discovered, Jacob said, they were immediately secured in a locked safe and reported to the National Archives. FBI agents then collect the documents that had been secured.

Material found in the boxes came mostly from Pence’s Naval Observatory vice presidential residence, while other material came from a West Wing office drawer.

The FBI had already taken possession of what Pence’s lawyer described to the National Archives as a “small number of documents” that had been “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Pence’s Indiana home at the end of the Trump administration.

The search Friday was described as consensual and came after an extensive back-and-forth between Pence’s legal team and the FBI. A member of Pence’s legal team was at the home and expected the search to take several hours, according to one of the people familiar with the discussions. That person added that the FBI was being given unrestricted access to the home.

The former vice president and potential 2024 candidate was out of the state, visiting family in California after the birth of a grandchild.

The Justice Department did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.

At an appearance at Florida International University last month, Pence said that he takes "full responsibility" for the documents being in his home.

"Let me be clear about something: Those classified documents should not have been in my personal residence," Pence said in his first public comments since the discovery. "Mistakes were made, and I take full responsibility."

"We acted above politics and put national interests first," he said.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.