Mike Pence said Sunday that he does not have any knowledge about any “broad-based effort” by former president Donald Trump to declassify documents that he took after leaving office in 2021, CNN reported.
Prior to the presidential debates that he will be attending this week, the former US vice president said: “There is a process that the White House goes through to declassify materials. I’m aware of that occurring on several occasions over the course of our four years.
“But I don’t have any knowledge of any broad-based directive from the president,” Pence told ABC News.
“But that doesn’t mean it didn’t occur. I just — it’s not something that I ever heard about,” he added.
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Recently, in June, Trump was indicted on seven counts as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into the Republican presidential candidate’s handling of classified documents that he brought to his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort after he left the White House in 2021.
The counts in the indictment also include potential obstruction of the investigation and government efforts to recover the material.
According to the Presidential Records Act, White House records are meant to be stored in safe places like the National Archives, after an administration ends.
However, despite being indicted multiple times, Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Pence has criticised Trump for his involvement in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, since announcing his candidature for president earlier this year, but he has been cautious about going further with his condemnation.
He said that while Trump’s actions on January 6 were careless, he is not yet certain that they were crimes. However, Pence has not ruled out pardoning the former president.
While sharing the strategy that he will be using on the debate stage set for Wednesday, Pence said: “I’m just going to be me. I feel like I’ve been preparing for this first Republican presidential debate my whole life.”
