For The Washington Post

The Washington Post

staff

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate Pence files his paperwork to put his name on the primary ballot in Concord

Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Attends Labor Day Events In New Hampshire

Stringer

Mike Pence Pizza Ranch Lunch

for The Washington POst

Pence Announce

NRA Convention IN

MIKE PENCE

Election 2024 Pence

FILE PHOTO: Joint session of Congress to certify Biden as next U.S. president in Washington

Pool

Congress Holds Joint Session To Ratify 2020 Presidential Election

Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Israel’s offensive is destroying Gaza’s ability to grow its own food

Riot police and over 2,000 arrests: A look at 2 weeks of campus protests

‘It’s been abused’ Rep. McCaul on motion to vacate threat

Journalism in India is under assault

The dangerous new call for regime change in Beijing

Ukrainian men abroad voice anger over pressure to return home to fight 

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

You asked: Do I need a passport for my cruise?

Adaptive equipment is making national parks more inclusive

Trump Media auditor charged by SEC with ‘massive fraud’

Biden honors distinguished Americans; Trump back in N.Y. court

Google’s empire is massive. A judge will soon rule if it’s a monopoly.

An I bond is now at 4.28 percent. Are they still a good deal?

Use these 6 points to say no to a college you and your kid can’t afford

How this new rule protects retirement savers from costly advice

The New York Times, alone in its outrage over access to Biden

Wait, what is Stephen A. Smith talking about? Find out with our quiz.

Stephen A. Smith would like even more of your attention

Hope Hicks witnessed nearly every Trump scandal. Now she must testify.

State laws measure if a woman is close enough to death for an abortion

The Capitals, a team in transition, know what they want this offseason

Is Pastis as good as our food critic thought? He sent spies to find out.

Nationals can’t solve Nate Eovaldi, drop series finale to Rangers

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

Brave Little Hunter is free: Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

On Press Freedom Day, little to celebrate for Hong Kong’s journalists

Young Georgians want to be part of Europe. Their government is in the way.

Taxes are inevitable. Paying to prepare them doesn’t have to be.

Ask Amy: Should I be the best man if I think the bride is abusive?

Carolyn Hax: Husband keeps pushing modest spouse to wear sexier clothes

Miss Manners: Host eats luxurious breakfast, leaves cereal for guest

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

Craig Hudson

The Justice Department has closed its investigation into former vice president Mike Pence’s possession of potentially sensitive government documents after leaving office and will not pursue charges, officials said Friday.

A Justice Department official said the agency sent a one-page letter to Pence’s lawyer Thursday informing him of the decision. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the letter has not been publicly released.

A spokesman for Pence, who is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/31/chris-christie-trump-republican-presidential-nomination/" target=_blank>expected to enter the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination next week</a>, said the former vice president was “pleased but not surprised.”

The investigation of Pence’s potential mishandling of government materials launched earlier this year, amid a much broader probe of former president Donald Trump’s handling of classified material and the separate discovery that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a> had some classified documents in his possession from his time in the Senate and as vice president, before he became commander in chief.

Pence attorney Greg Jacob said in January that Pence had initiated a search of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/24/pence-classified-documents-home/" target=_blank>records stored in his Indiana home</a> “out of an abundance of caution,” to examine whether he — like Trump and Biden — potentially kept any records that should have stayed with the government.

In a Jan. 18 letter to the National Archives and Records Administration, Jacob said the outside counsel tapped to conduct the search had “identified a small number of documents that could potentially contain sensitive or classified information interspersed throughout the records.” Pence had been unaware that the documents were at his home and was “ready and willing to cooperate fully,” Jacob wrote. The material was subsequently turned over to the FBI.

What are classified documents? Explaining the levels, penalties for mishandling.

The Justice Department investigations into the possession of classified material by Biden and Trump are still underway — each led by a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland late last year, after Trump launched his 2024 presidential campaign and as Biden was widely expected to run for reelection (he has since formally launched his bid). No special counsel was appointed to investigate Pence.

Biden, like Pence, appears to have cooperated fully with the Justice Department after classified material was found in an office he used following his vice presidency. He agreed to additional searches of the office and his homes, in which <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/21/biden-classified-documents/" target=_blank>several more documents were found</a>. His lawyers say they promptly turned over all relevant material to authorities and have cooperated fully with the appropriate government agencies.

In Trump’s case, the National Archives tried for months to retrieve government documents and other materials that officials with the agency believed the former president had improperly kept with him. Eventually, Trump returned 15 boxes of material to the archives. Once classified material was discovered inside those boxes, the Justice Department launched an investigation.

The government sent a grand jury subpoena to Trump’s lawyers in May 2022 seeking the return of all material with classified markings in the former president’s possession. Nearly 40 additional documents were returned, but the Justice Department developed evidence that more classified material remained. A court-approved FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home and private club, turned up more than 100 additional classified documents, some containing highly sensitive and secret information.

The Washington Post<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/25/trump-classified-documents-mar-a-lago/" target=_blank> has reported</a> that prosecutors have identified numerous instances in which Trump and his team may have tried to obstruct the government investigation, according to people familiar with the matter, who have spoken on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation.

The evidence obtained by prosecutors includes witness testimony and video footage that shows workers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/25/trump-classified-documents-mar-a-lago/" target="_blank">moving boxes at Mar-a-Lago</a>; a conversation<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/30/trump-mar-a-lago-surveillance-camera/" target="_blank"> about how long video surveillance footage is kept</a> before it is erased; and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/31/trump-recording-classified-iran/" target="_blank">an audio recording of Trump</a> — months after leaving office — describing a multi-page document that he claims is about possibly attacking Iran, expressing a desire to share that information with others but also making some kind of acknowledgment that he shouldn’t do so.

In a message posted Friday after news broke of the Justice Department letter to Pence’s attorney, Trump said it was “great” that his former vice president would not be charged and demanded a similar outcome for himself.

“When am I going to be fully exonerated,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I’m at least as innocent as he is.”

Washington University in St. Louis, BA

Perry Stein covers the Justice Department and FBI for The Washington Post. She previously covered D.C. education. Before she joined The Post in 2015, she was a staff writer for Washington City Paper and wrote for the Miami Herald. 

Perry Stein

Pulitzer Prize co-finalist for Feature Writing, 2017

Pulitzer Prize co-finalist for International Reporting, 2017

Part of team that won Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, 2018

Part of team that won Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, 2022

"October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election"

McGill University, BA 

Devlin Barrett writes about the FBI and the Justice Department, and is the author of "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election." He was part of reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 and 2022. In 2017 he was a co-finalist for the Pulitzer for Feature Writing and the Pulitzer for International Reporting. 

Devlin Barrett

washpost

Mike Pence won't be charged for classified documents possession, DOJ says

the-washington-post

For the Washington Post

Foreign Policy

Intelligence

Justice

Military

Balance of Power Pair

U.S. House Aggregate

U.S. Senate Aggregate

National Security

prism://prism.query/site,/national-security&limit=20

Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.

The Washington Post's coverage of national security issues, including the military, intelligence, justice, and foreign policy.

prism://prism.query/site,/national-security/justice&limit=20

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/politics&limit=20

Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.

Politics

Post Politics from The Washington Post is the source for political news headlines, in-depth politics coverage and political opinion, plus breaking news on the biden administration and White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, elections and more.