FBI Director Christopher Wray publicly addressed the recent rash of classified documents seemingly retained by three prominent politicians — former President Donald Trump, current President Joe Biden, and former Vice President Mike Pence — without signaling whether any of the trio would be formally charged with committing crimes.
"We have had, for quite a number of years, any number of mishandling investigations," Wray told reporters on Thursday. "That is unfortunately a regular part of our counterintelligence divisions, counterintelligence programs' work."
Wray then added, "People need to be conscious of the rules regarding classified information and appropriate handling. Those rules are there for a reason."
After the document disputes involving Trump and Biden, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) reportedly asked other former presidents and vice presidents to search their own personal records for any materials that may be deemed "classified" or highly sensitive.
And that likely prompted Pence to self-report his own batch of classified documents to federal officials last week.
At least four batches of classified materials have been found in Biden's possession this month — at an office think tank in Washington, D.C. (the Penn Biden Center), and Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware.
It's worth noting, though: All of Biden's highly sensitive documents involved his time as a U.S. senator or vice president — with none of the positions possessing the power to declassify documents.
As for Trump, he reportedly had the most classified documents in his possession, compared to Pence and Biden. At the same time, of this threesome, only Trump had the capacity to declassify top-secret materials before leaving the White House in January 2021.
And as Alan Dershowitz recently noted to Newsmax, the burden of proof that Trump didn't properly declassify his documents previously being stored at Mar-a-Lago falls completely onto the U.S. government — and not Trump.
"Trump doesn't have to prove anything [with declassification verification]; the government has to prove the opposite," explained Dershowitz, one of this country's foremost experts on the U.S. Constitution, and author of "The Price of Principle: Why Integrity Is Worth The Consequences."
Attorney General Merrick Garland recently appointed special counsels to the cases involving Trump (Jack Smith) and Biden (Robert Hur).
However, it remains to be seen if a similar special counsel will be assigned to Pence's case.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.