Classified documents at Pence’s home, too, his lawyer says

In this file photo taken on April 12, 2022 former US Vice President Mike Pence speaks at a campus lecture hosted by Young Americans for Freedom at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. (AFP)
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Updated 25 January 2023
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Classified documents at Pence’s home, too, his lawyer says

  • The newest discovery thrusts Pence, who had previously insisted that he followed stringent protocols regarding classified documents, into the debate over the handling of secret materials by officials who have served in the highest ranks of government

NEW YORK: Documents with classified markings were discovered in former Vice President Mike Pence ‘s Indiana residence last week, his lawyer says, the latest in a string of recoveries of papers meant to be treated with utmost sensitivity from the homes of current and former top US officials.
“A small number of documents,” taken into FBI custody last Thursday, “were inadvertently boxed and transported” to the former vice president’s home at the end of the last administration, Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, wrote in a letter to the National Archives shared with The Associated Press.
He said that Pence had been “unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence” until a search last week and that he “understands the high importance of protecting sensitive and classified information” and stands ready to cooperate with “any appropriate inquiry.”
The revelation came as the Department of Justice was already investigating the discovery of documents with classification markings in President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware and his former Washington office, as well as former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate. Democrat Biden has indicated he will seek reelection, Republican Trump is already a declared candidate, and Pence has been exploring a possible 2024 campaign that would put him in direct competition against Trump, his former boss.
The newest discovery thrusts Pence, who had previously insisted that he followed stringent protocols regarding classified documents, into the debate over the handling of secret materials by officials who have served in the highest ranks of government.
Trump is currently under criminal investigation after roughly 300 documents with classified markings, including at the top secret level, were discovered at his Mar-a-Lago. Officials are trying to determine whether Trump or anyone else should be charged with illegal possession of those records or with trying to obstruct the months-long criminal investigation. Biden is also subject to a special counsel investigation after classified documents from his time as a senator and in the Obama administration were found at his properties.
Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, reacted to the new development on his social media site: “Mike Pence is an innocent man. He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. Leave him alone!!!” Trump and Pence have clashed over Pence’s refusal to go along with Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
While a very different case, the Pence development could bolster the arguments of Trump and Biden, who have sought to downplay the significance of the discoveries at their homes. The presence of secret documents at all three men’s residences further underscores the federal government’s unwieldy system for storing and protecting the millions of classified documents it produces every year.
Pence’s lawyer, Jacob, said in his letter that the former vice president had “engaged outside counsel, with experience in handling classified documents” to review records stored at his home on Jan. 16 “out of an abundance of caution” amid the uproar over the discovery of documents at Biden’s home.
Jacob said the Pence documents with classification markings were immediately secured in a locked safe. FBI agents visited the residence the night of Jan. 19 at 9:30 p.m. to collect the documents that had been secured, according to a follow-up letter from the lawyer dated Jan. 22. Pence was in Washington for an event at the time.
A total of four boxes containing copies of administration papers — — two in which “a small number” of papers bearing classified markings were found, and two containing “courtesy copies of vice presidential papers” — were discovered, according to the letter. Arrangements were made to deliver those boxes to the National Archives Monday.
Congressional leaders were notified of the discovery by Pence’s team on Tuesday.
The boxes, according to a Pence aide, were not kept in a secure location, but were taped shut and were not believed to have been opened since they were packed. The former vice president’s staff also searched the Washington office of his advocacy group last week and did not discover additional documents, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the search.
Material found in the boxes came mostly from Pence’s Naval Observatory vice presidential residence, the packing of which would not have been handled by the vice president’s office or its lawyers. Other material came from a West Wing office drawer, the person said.
The National Archives declined to comment on the discovery. A Justice Department spokesman also declined to comment, and a lawyer for Pence did not immediately respond to an email seeking elaboration.
Pence told the Associated Press in August that he did not take any classified information with him when he left office.
Asked directly if he had retained any such information, he said, “No, not to my knowledge.”
In an interview this month with Fox Business, Pence described a “very formal process” used by his office to handle classified information as well as the steps taken by his lawyers to ensure none was taken with him.
“Before we left the White House, the attorneys on my staff went through all the documents at both the White House and our offices there and at the vice president’s residence to ensure that any documents that needed to be turned over to the National Archives, including classified documents, were turned over. So we went through a very careful process in that regard,” Pence said.
On Capitol Hill, members of the Senate intelligence committee expressed incredulity over the mishandling of documents by top US officials.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas noted that classified documents are only moved out of the committee’s offices in locked bags.
“In my book, it’s never permissible to take classified documents outside of a secure facility” except by a secure means of transport between such facilities, he said.
House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner, a Republican, said he planned to request a formal intelligence review and damage assessment.
And Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, another potential 2024 candidate, said, “I don’t know how anybody ends up with classified documents. ... I mean, every classified document I’ve ever seen has a big ‘Classified’ on it.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, and a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, pointed to broader concerns with the classification system, complaining that it “is at the point where there is so much out there it is hard to determine what ought to be classified, and then it is hard to determine what should be declassified.”
Meanwhile, some Republicans pressed for a search of former President Barack Obama’s personal records.
An Obama spokesperson referred to a 2022 statement from the National Archives that said the agency took control of all of his records after he left office and “is not aware of any missing boxes of presidential records from the Obama administration.”
Representatives of former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and former Vice President Dick Cheney said all of their classified records had been turned over to NARA upon leaving the White House.
Mike Pompeo, who served as Trump’s secretary of state and is mulling his own 2024 GOP presidential bid, told the AP in August that he had not taken any any classified material with him after leaving the administration.
But he told Fox News channel Tuesday, “When you’re in the executive branch, you have these documents in your home. One can imagine a note getting someplace, getting stuck. I suspect that may be what happened.”

 


Pope Leo to escape Rome’s summer heat with July stay at Castel Gandolfo

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Pope Leo to escape Rome’s summer heat with July stay at Castel Gandolfo

The pontiff will spend July 6 to 20 about an hour’s drive south in Castel Gandolfo, the Vatican said
All of Leo’s public and private audiences have been suspended from July 2 through July 23

VATICAN CITY: As temperatures in Rome swelter this month, reaching more than 35 degrees Celsius (95°F) under the hot Mediterranean sun, Pope Leo has decided to leave town.

The pontiff will spend July 6 to 20 about an hour’s drive south in Castel Gandolfo, a small hamlet on Lake Albano, the Vatican said on Tuesday.

Leo, elected pope on May 8 to replace the late Pope Francis, will also return to the lakeshore for at least one weekend in August, it said.

All of Leo’s public and private audiences have been suspended from July 2 through July 23, the Vatican said, as was usual under Francis, to allow the pontiff a period of rest. They will restart on July 30.

By going to Castel Gandolfo, Leo is restarting a summer tradition that was broken by Francis.

Dozens of popes over centuries have spent the summer months at Lake Albano, where temperatures are usually about ten degrees cooler than Rome, but Francis preferred to stay in his air-conditioned Vatican residence.

The Vatican has owned a papal palace and surrounding grounds in Castel Gandolfo since 1596. Spanning 55 hectares, the property includes official apartments, elaborate Renaissance-style gardens, a forest and a working dairy farm.

Francis, who shunned most of the trappings of the papacy, had the official papal palace turned into a museum.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni told Reuters the pope would not stay at the palace, which will remain a museum, and will instead stay on another Vatican property.

Leo will return to Castel Gandolfo for the weekend of August 15 to 17.

August 15, a Catholic feast day to celebrate Mary, the Mother of God, is an Italian public holiday. Many Italians spend that day, and much of August, at the beach.

Black boxes from India plane crash under study to ascertain cause of the disaster that killed 270

Updated 17 June 2025
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Black boxes from India plane crash under study to ascertain cause of the disaster that killed 270

  • A former pilot and an aviation expert said the recovery of the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, or black boxes, are crucial to piece together the sequence of events

NEW DELHI: Investigators in India are studying the black boxes of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner after recovering them from the aircraft wreckage to ascertain the cause of last week’s plane crash that left at least 270 people dead.
The black boxes will provide cockpit conversations and data related to the plane’s engine and control settings to investigators and help them in determining the cause of the crash.
The London-bound Air India aircraft, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, crashed on a medical college hostel soon after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad. Only one passenger survived the crash, while 241 people on board and 29 on the ground were killed in one of India’s worst aviation disaster in decades.
Experts from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau are probing the crash with assistance from the UK, the US and officials from Boeing.
Black box data is crucial
Amit Singh, a former pilot and an aviation expert, said the recovery of the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, or black boxes, are crucial to piece together the sequence of events.
The cockpit voice recorder records pilots’ conversation, emergency alarms and any distress signal made before a crash. The plane’s digital flight data recorder stores information related to engine and control settings. Both devices are designed to survive a crash.
“The data will reveal everything,” Singh said, adding that the technical details could be corroborated by the cockpit voice recorder that would help investigators know of any communication between air traffic control and the pilots.
India’s aviation regulatory body has said the aircraft made a mayday call before the crash.
Singh said the investigating authorities will scan CCTV footage of the nearby area and speak with witnesses to get to the root cause of the crash.
Additionally, Singh said, the investigators will also study the pilot training records, total load of the aircraft, thrust issues related to the plane’s engine, as well as its worthiness in terms of past performances and any previously reported issues.
Investigation into the crash could take time
Aurobindo Handa, former director general of India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, said the investigators across the world follow a standard UN-prescribed Manual of Accident Investigation, also called “DOC 9756,” which outlines detailed procedures to arrive at the most probable cause of a crash.
Handa said the investigation into last week’s crash would likely be a long process as the aircraft was badly charred. He added that ascertaining the condition of the black boxes recovered from the crash site was vital as the heat generated from the crash could be possibly higher than the bearable threshold of the device.
The Indian government has set up a separate, high-level committee to examine the causes leading to the crash and formulate procedures to prevent and handle aircraft emergencies in the future. The committee is expected to file a preliminary report within three months.
Authorities have also begun inspecting and carrying out additional maintenance and checks of Air India’s entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners to prevent any future incident. Air India has 33 Dreamliners in its fleet.
The plane that crashed was 12 years old. Boeing planes have been plagued by safety issues on other types of aircraft. There are currently around 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide and this was the first deadly crash in 16 years of operation, according to experts.


Russian media say top official is in Pyongyang again to meet North Korean leader

Updated 17 June 2025
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Russian media say top official is in Pyongyang again to meet North Korean leader

SEOUL: A top Russian security official traveled to Pyongyang for the second time this month for another meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Russian state media reported Tuesday, the latest display of the countries’ deepening ties amid President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine.
Russia’s Tass news agency said Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu arrived in the North Korean capital on an unspecified “special” mission from Putin and was expected to meet with Kim. North Korean state media didn’t immediately confirm the visit.
Kim has supplied Russia with thousands of troops and large shipments of military equipment, including artillery and ballistic missiles, to support its military operation in Ukraine. Washington and Seoul have expressed concern that, in return, Kim may seek Russian technology transfers that could enhance the threat posed by his nuclear-armed military.
In April, Pyongyang and Moscow officially confirmed North Korean troops’ deployment to Russia for the first time, saying that soldiers of the two countries were fighting alongside each other to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region. Putin then thanked North Korea’s participation in the war and promised not to forget their sacrifices.
In their previous meeting on June 4, Kim told Shoigu that his government would “unconditionally support” Russia over the war in Ukraine and other critical international issues as they discussed strengthening the strategic partnership between their countries, according to North Korean state media. Tass then reported that Shoigu and Kim also discussed prospects for rebuilding the Kursk region and outlined steps to commemorate the combat contributions of North Korean soldiers.


India warns citizens to leave Tehran as some flee Iran

Updated 17 June 2025
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India warns citizens to leave Tehran as some flee Iran

NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday urged its citizens to leave Tehran, while some nationals have already fled across the Iranian border as the country comes under Israeli bombardment.
With Israel vowing to keep up its attacks four days after launching its assault on Iran, which has launched retaliatory strikes, New Delhi said Indian students have already left Tehran.
“Residents who are self sufficient in terms of transport have also been advised to move out of the city in view of the developing situation,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The warning came after Israel’s ally US President Donald Trump said “everyone” should “immediately” leave the Iranian capital, which is home to nearly 10 million.
New Delhi said “some Indians have been facilitated to leave Iran through the border with Armenia,” hundreds of kilometers (miles) northwest of Tehran.
The foreign ministry did not detail how many of its citizens have been affected in Iran, where there are around 10,000 Indians according to government data last year.
Thousands of Indians are also in Israel, and New Delhi has issued warnings for its citizens there to “stay vigilant.”

More than 600 foreign nationals have crossed from Iran into neighbouring Azerbaijan since the strikes began, a government official in Baku said.

“Since the start of the military escalation between Israel and Iran, more than 600 citizens of 17 countries have been evacuated from Iran via Azerbaijan,” the government source told AFP on Tuesday.

“Evacuees are transported from the border to Baku International Airport and flown to their home countries on international flights.” 


Fast-moving brush fire on Hawaii’s Maui island evacuates about 50 people. No structures have burned

Updated 17 June 2025
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Fast-moving brush fire on Hawaii’s Maui island evacuates about 50 people. No structures have burned

  • Officials said it was 85 percent contained as of Monday morning

HONOLULU: A fast-moving Hawaii brush fire fueled by fierce winds forced the evacuation of about 50 Maui residents on the opposite side of the same island where a devastating blaze killed over 100 people two years ago.
The fire started Sunday in a sparsely populated area with land set aside for Native Hawaiians.
Here’s what we know about the fire so far:
Fire size now estimated at 330 acres
The Kahikinui was initially estimated at 500 acres (202 hectares), but aerial surveys overnight put the estimate at about 330 acres (134 hectares), Maui’s fire department said. The fire is 85 percent contained.
The remote, challenging terrain made it difficult to estimate the fire’s size, the department said in a statement. A police drone showed hot spots, but none flared overnight.
No injuries or structural damage was reported. Weather conditions were mostly sunny Monday with a high of 67 degrees Fahrenheit (19 degrees Celsius) and east winds of about 15 mph (24 kph), gusting up to about 25 mph (40 kph).
The US Drought Monitor says all of Maui is in drought.
Authorities conducted door-to-door evacuations and part of a highway remains closed.
Flashbacks to an earlier fire
Warren Aganos was on his family’s Hawaiian Homelands lot preparing to go on a Father’s Day hunt when a neighbor called him around 9 a.m. telling him a fire had broken out.
“I hung up and raced out, I didn’t let her finish,” said Aganos, who has been slowly rebuilding the three structures his family lost in a 2016 brush fire that burned over 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares) in the same area. “I was thinking about the last one,” he said. “It was super emotional.”
Aganos said he rushed in his truck to make sure first responders knew where the community’s water storage tanks were before navigating Kahikinui’s dirt roads down to the highway where he could see smoke billowing over the hillside. The community lacks electrical and water infrastructure, and some of the roads are only navigable by four-wheel drive.
State and local leaders signed emergency proclamations so that the Hawaii National Guard can help and counties can access assistance.
What is the region like?
Kahikinui is less populated and developed than Lahaina, which was the Hawaiian Kingdom’s capital in the 1800s and is now a popular tourist destination. Kahikinui was used for cattle ranching for many years and is near a state forest reserve.
The fire department sent engines, tankers and a helicopter to battle the blaze. Three bulldozers cut firebreaks in the lower part of the community, Desiree Graham, co-chair of Kahikinui’s firewise committee, said.
The area has 104 Hawaiian homeland lots of 10 to 20 acres (4 to 8 hectares) each. About 40 lots have homes, including 15 with full-time residents. Some lots have more than one home, Graham said.
A state agency issues lot leases under a program Congress created in 1921 to help Native Hawaiians become economically self-sufficient. Those with at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood quantum can apply for a 99-year lease for $1 a year.
Fire devastated Lahaina nearly two years ago
Maui is still recovering from the massive inferno that enveloped Lahaina in August 2023.
That fire was the deadliest in the US in more than a century. It destroyed thousands of properties and caused an estimated $5.5 billion in damage. University of Hawaii researchers say unemployment and poverty rose after the blaze.
The Kahikinui fire may seem small compared to continental US fires, but it’s significant for an island of 735 square miles (1,903 square kilometers).
Other Western fires
Crews also are battling wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, around the Great Basin, in California and the Rockies.
National Weather Service forecasters and federal land managers have warned in recent weeks that fire danger is escalating in many places amid rising daytime temperatures and single-digit humidity levels.
The risks won’t start to wane — at least in the southwestern US — until the monsoon starts to kick in, bringing much-needed rain. In southern New Mexico, a wildfire ballooned to nearly 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) over the weekend in the Gila National Forest.
The flames forced the evacuations of homes that dot the mountains north of Silver City, blocked access to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument and prompted air quality warnings as smoke drifted north. Campgrounds and access points to the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail also were closed.
In Oregon, several dozen homes in Wasco County were destroyed by a fire that started last Wednesday. Some evacuations remained, but fire managers said Monday that the threat to structures had diminished.
So far this year, the nation has seen double the number of fires as last year but the acreage is less, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. More than 2,700 wildland firefighters and support personnel were assigned to 15 large wildfires across the country.