Geoff: Aides to former vice
president Mike pence discovered
what they say are a small number
of classified documents at his
Indiana home in a search
conducted last week,
intensifying scrutiny over the
handling of classified materials
by the nation's highest
officeholders.
Laura barron-lopez has the
latest on what we know.
Laura: The former vice
president's attorney said they
believe the documents were quote
inadvertently boxed and
transported to pence's home at
the end of the trump
administration without his
knowledge.
Upon discovering the materials,
pence and his attorneys notified
the national archives.
His attorney wrote in a letter
that "Vice president pence
understands the high importance
of protecting sensitive and
classified information and
stands ready and willing to
cooperate fully."
For more on what this means, I'm
joined by Larry Pfeiffer.
He's the director of the Hayden
center, an intelligence policy
organization.
Thank you for joining us.
Pence's attorney said the search
was prompt by the discovery of
classified documents at
president Biden's home and
office.
You ran the situation room under
president Obama and have been in
the security community over 30
years.
Should all high-level officials
do searches like this?
Larry: I've been paying the past
several weeks that if I was a
former president or vice
president, I would even throw in
former cabinet officials or even
senators and congressmen that
served on until communities,
they should be searching every
nook and cranny and storage
space to make sure they are not
the next big "Whoops" moment.
Laura: Former president trump am
a current president Biden, vice
president pence, all of these
classified documents have been
found.
Is it time to reform how
classified information is
handled?
Larry: I do think an examination
of the process at the white
house is worth some attention.
I think assembling a group of
experts from the intelligence
community, the Pentagon, the
national archives, perhaps the
office of management and budget,
to review the end-to-end
process, how are documents
coming in my toward, handled,
and particular focus on the
timeframe at the end of an
administration when it appears
folks were scrabbling to remove
the materials and put them in
boxes and get them to where they
should have gone clearly that is
not happening correctly.
Laura: Are there other things
that could be done in terms of
using electronic forms or other
steps along the way in the
process?
Larry: Absolutely.
I think a greater reliance on
electronic documents would
minimize the volume of paper
sitting around in these spaces.
I think we definitely should
improve, review and improve the
training, the people that go to
work in the white house
received, particularly those
that come from other places than
the security community, and then
perhaps have a together schedule
of reinforcement training.
It might not be a bad idea to
reinforce the notion that
documents should be going to the
archives during an
administration, not just at the
end of the administration.
And lastly, it might be worth
considering having teams of
experts come from those
communities to help with the
oxen and this position of those
records at the end of an
administration.
Laura: This revelation in the
form of vice president pence
comes after pence denied taking
documents from the white house
after he left in 2017.
Intentional or unintentional,
how common is this?
Larry: The investigation Vesely
needs to take place to see
exactly what happened, but this
unfortunately happens.
The handling of documents is
largely a system of trust.
It is subject to the human
condition and people make
mistakes.
It happens enough that we have a
term, we call this spillage and
we have procedures in place to
handle them.
Intentional, no.
From what I am seeing so far, I
think these documents got put
into boxes unknowingly and I
think it was done by staff, I
don't believe the vice president
, former vice president,
president Biden were involved in
the process of removing the
documents.
Laura: Given what we know so far
across the cases, do you see
each of them different on their
own or are there similarities?
Larry: Well, it is like sesame
street, I think we have enough
where we can say one of these
things is not like the other.
The Biden and pence cases seem
to be run-of-the-mill accidents.
In the case of trump, however,
the volume of material, the
reluctance to respond to
requests for the documents, the
continued obstruction that took
place, the litigation that
followed, clearly set the trump
situation in a different light.
Laura: Larry, thank you for your
time.
Larry: Thank you.