evan perez is following this for us. tell us more about these five pages. >> the white house says the five pages were turned over or discovered when the white house made arrangements and the president's personal lawyers made arrangements for the justice department to come and retrieve a one-page document they say they found in an office adjacent to a garage at the wilmington home that they previously told us about. this timeline, this additional piece of detail told us also that the -- there's a white house counsel, a lawyer, who went to wilmington to try to facilitate turning over those documents. so, what this means, victor, is that you have additional witnesses that -- rob hurr, the new special counsel and the fbi will have to talk to. we now know that the white house and the president's personal lawyers allowed investigators to talk to a number of people who were involved in all of this. you know, it just seems like because of the messiness and the way they explained this, they now created new witnesses who will need

we are following this from every angle, so let's begin with cnn's evan perez. what are you learning about what we can expect to hear from the attorney general in just a few moments? >> reporter: well, bianna, we obviously know that the justice department attorney general garland are in a difficult position given the fact that we are learning still new details about these documents that the president's team says that they found now at multiple locations. the justice department is facing the decision right now whether to appoint a special counsel, whether to open a fuller investigation. we know that, at least at this point, there was an initial review that was done by the u.s. attorney in chicago. that part of the investigation is completed, and so now the decision from garland that we expect to hear from him in the next few minutes, is what to do next. and as we've all been talking about, the fact that this has to do with the sitting president, merrick garland's boss, really kind of puts him and others here in the department in a difficult position, one that cou

evan perez, cnn, washington. >>> as evan mentioned, the national archives referred the discovery to the justice department. . we explain why they didn't. >> reporter: i spoke to a source earlier today who's familiar with the national archives and how they handle this. over the last year i've spoken to a lot of former high level officials who, frankly, admitted to me that they had accidentally had a file that they found later. there is a certain amount normally, in normal times before mar-a-lago, a certain amount of discretion. does the national archives think this was a mistake? i'm told specifically because of what's going on with donald trump that the ar kiefts knew that they had to, you know, out of an abundance of favirness, caution, they had to disclose it. >>> rudy giuliani has been subpoenaed as part of a grand jury investigation into the former u.s. president's fundraising right after he lost the 2020 election, that's according to a source familiar with the investigation. the special counsel has asked giuliani to turn over records about payments he received around that time when

cnn's evan perez joins us live with more on this.he white house says that were found by the current president's attorneys in november as they were closing out an office that the former vice president, biden, of course, had set up an office with the university of pennsylvania at the penn biden center here in washington. they were closing out these offices when they found what they say were fewer than a dozen documents that were labeled as classified. now, a number of these documents were also subject to the presidential records act, and according to the white house, these were now turned over to the national archives, which has asked the justice department to look into it. now, we're told now, jake, that the attorney general, merrick garland, has asked the u.s. attorney in chicago to conduct a review of these documents, which is a standard process that they would go through. this is akin to the process that happened after the national archives asked the justice department to look into these classified materials that were recovered fro

i wanna bring in evan perez and sara murray. evan, you have the reporting on these documents. just laid out for us. what do we know? >> well, john what we know now from the white house is that these documents were found in november during a search -- or process that the president's legal team was doing to shut down an office that he had set up when he left office back in 2017. he left the office as vice president. he had set up a think tank but the university of pennsylvania. it was during that process last november that they uncovered these government records. they should have been turned over to the national archives. now, among those documents as you pointed out was president biden's team, it was fewer than a dozen documents as a classified. at least some of these documents were at the level that stands for a sensitive compartmental information. some of the most closely guarded secrets of the government. the president still doesn't know what was in those documents. so, at this stage we know that the justice department is doing a review and an investigation. it's handled by

cnn senior justice correspondent evan perez joins us now. have you learned, evan?we know that the investigators are doing the initial review, talk to a number of people associate with president biden. one at them, it turns out, is patrick moore. he's a long time biden campaign a attorney election lawyer who was present when the first batch of documents were found back in november. he was among the people there who were trying to go through these boxes of documents, that were being removed from a private office that president biden used during the trump administration. this is at the penn biden center here in washington. we are told that he was one of the people essentially who was first on the scene there and was obviously an important person for the fbi for the u. s. attorney in chicago to talk to, anderson. >> the attorney also turned over a set of nonclassified documents to the archives, right? >> that's right, so after they found the classified documents, and they turned over those documents to the national archives, they decided--according to the white house t

. >> evan perez joins us now from the just department. and evan, there has been an epidemic of these kinds of extortion cases here. i wonder how essential hive has been to all of this and what we expect from the attorney general when he speaks minutes from now. >> well that is right, jim. this is an epidemic. it is also a very lucrative business and the justice department and the fbi as well as law enforcement in europe has been fighting this because you see this group, hive, and others that are targeting, targeting health care organizations and they managed to steal the data and the information for hundreds and thousands of millions of people at a time. and then they use this website to try to shame those organizations to try to get money to try to extort money from those organizations. and what we know is that the fbi along with working with law enforcement in other countries has seized this website. one of things that they're trying to do is in the next hour we're expecting to hear from the attorney general from the fbi director chris w

we get more details now from cnn's evan perez in washington. >> reporter: lawyers for president bidenay they turned up another five pages of classified documents during a search of his home this week. that's the second time in two days that the white house has had to correct what it says was incomplete information about the number of documents that it has found in searches of a number of locations associated with the president. altogether, we're talking about 20 classified records that the biden team has found and turned over to the justice department. the shifting story line has created a major political and legal headache for the president, who is now the subject of an investigation by a special counsel appointed in recent days by attorney general merrick garland. this all began with the discovery of government records, including ten classified documents from the obama era, at a private office in washington that biden used during the presidency of donald trump. the second set of classified documents was found at biden's home in wilmington, delaware, on december 20th. but the white h

cnn's senior justice correspondent evan perez joins us now. in all, there are about 20 documents found between the president's private home and at the penn biden center. is this it, or do you expect more to be found? >> that's the problem. the justice department is concerned there might be additional documents that have not yet been found. so this is now going to be one of the top items, obviously, on the list for the new special counsel rob her, who's bringing in a team and they're going to pick up this investigation that until now has been handled by the u.s. attorney in chicago. the issue for the president and the white house is that now we have obviously in the space of just over 24 hours they've had to shift their stories and change their stories because of incomplete information. that's never a good thing for a white house, right? it's a political problem for sure, but it is also possibly a legal problem, because you've covered the justice department for a number of years and you know how investigators think. when they see shifting stori

let's get right to cnn senior justice correspondent, evan perez, who is following all of this. evan, what more can you tell us about these classified documents that were found? not always a good thing whenela saturday. >> not always when you fix a statement that was provided a day earlier. what the white house is now confronting, they have had to explain multiple times in the past week about the finding of these classified documents. and a lot of it, frankly, they've known about the documents since at least december, that there were additional documents they chose not to disclose it. what we know is there was an additional five pages of classified documents, that they were found in the president's home in williamington. that's in addition to one document they had disclosed just yesterday. and the issue for the white house is that now we're talking about around 20 documents, that have been handed over to federal authorities, to the fbi. the u.s. attorney in chicago, who has been doing a review of this, this all began back in november, when they first found the first batch. and th

cnn's evan perez has been following the developments.ut the documents found at pence's home? >> reporter: well, victor w, wh we know is these documents are in lower classification than what we've seen in the biden investigation, the investigation of classified documents that were found at the home and of the private office of president biden and of course, the hundreds of classified documents that were found in mar-a-lago at the home of former president trump. we know that the documents were described as briefing memos before the vice president was meeting foreign officials on foreign trips and so that is a very common thing that would be prepared for him. >> do we know after this news conference, if there will be another special counsel for these documents found at the vice president's home? >> reporter: we don't know yet, right, victor? but it does raise an important big question for the attorney general in merrick garland. he hasn't said what he's going to do. you get the sense from the justice department they view this case of former

i want to bring in cnn's evan perez and sara murray. you have the recording on these documents -- laid out for. us what we know? >> john, we know now, from the white house, that these documents were found in november during a process that the president's legal team was doing to shut down an office that he had set up when he left office back in 2017, when he left office as vice president, he had set up a think tank with the university of pennsylvania. and it is during that process, last november, that they uncovered these government records that needed to be turned over, should have been turned over to the national archives. now, among those documents, as you pointed out, were what is president biden's teams says -- fewer than i doesn't documents that were marked as classified. sources telling phil mattingly that at least some of these documents were at the -- sensitive compartmented information level. some of the most closely guarded secrets of the u.s. government. the president did not know and still does not know what exactly was in t

cnn's senior justice correspondent evan perez is following the latest developments for us. we used to cover the department of justice together. i imagine doj is not too pleased with how this is all playing out. >> no. it really gives the impression that the white house and the president have something to hide. the problem with the disclosures is that when we heard about this finally this week, that the white house and the president only spoke about the initial set of documents, about ten that had been turned over after the discovery back in november. what they didn't tell us then was there were another set of documents found on december 20th. they've known about this and they turned it over to the fbi. of course, now we know that the attorney general had gotten the recommendation days ago from the u.s. attorney in chicago who had been doing the review. he recommended appointing a special counsel to investigate all of this. you saw the attorney general do an unusual thing on thursday when he appointed bob her to do this investigation. he also gave a full timeline. the disclo

evan perez share it is biline of the story. he joins us now.o you know about the documents that were found? >> anderson, we know at least some of the documents were classified at a level tssci, which stands for sensitive compartmented information. this is information that comes from spell jens sources and is designed to be kept in secure locations, one of which presumably is not a office in the vice president's -- what was then the vice president's office at the penn biden center. so, that's the reason why this is now being looked into by the justice department, by the u.s. attorney, john laush in chicago. he's a trump appointee who's been kept on doing various investigations. and now he and the fbi are going to take a look at this. they're doing a review to see -- do a damage assessment, so to speak, which is a standard way of handling these types of things. according to the white house, they're cooperating they say this was found back in november, as the president's legal team was trying to close down this office at the university of pennsylv

as evan perez was saying at the top of this hour, some very key differences in these cases. we may see that play out as these investigations develop. joe lockhart, se cup, great to see both of you. sorry, joe, about the mega millions in maine. >> next time. >> next time. thanks so much. appreciate it. >>> coming up next, a wave of missile strikes have hit multiple cities in ukraine, including this. that strike killing at least 12 people, including a 15-year-old girl. russia's attacks on civilian targets continue. i will follow that next. you are live in the "cnn newsroom." it cleans better, and dodoesn't leave behind irritating residues. and it's gentle on her skin. case, closed! it's gotta be tide. one role of a lifetime... one sore throat. but she had enough. she took mucinex instasoothe sore throat lozenges. show your sore throat whs boss. mucix instasoothe. workin seconds, lasts for hours. (music throughout) get the royal treatment. join the millions playing royal match today. download now. the day you get your clearchoice dental implants makes every day... a "let's dig

cnn's evan perez joins us now now. what kind of pressure are both special counsel experiencing. >> you could see the political pressures built around all of this. the attorney general we're told was aware of the finding -- at least in the initial batch of the documents, at the time that he announced jack smith was investigating the two trump investigations. and of course, just this past week as the attorney general traveled to mexico city with the delegation led by the president, he had already made a decision that he needed to appoint a special counsel to investigate his boss. now, you've already seen the reaction from trump world and from republican allies attacking the investigation that has been ongoing by jack smith, the special counsel. new special counsel who just on the job 24 hours, he will face different pressures. there is going to come a time when investigators may need to talk to other officials around the president and maybe even the president himself. those are things that will have to be weighed and app

evan perez joins us now.ence's home, what does that mean for doj and the investigations into trump and president biden? >> reporter: these are now questions that have to be asked, right? because of this new discovery. the justice department is still trying to assess these adopts. the fbi is working with the intelligence agencies, you know, that own this information to try to figure out, you know, what harm there could be from these being stored in a place where they're not supposed to be. for the justice department, though, these are separate investigations. it's not clear what is going to happen next with the pence review, whether this leads to yet another special counsel. we know that mike pence is thinking about a presidential run which could perhaps play into a decision as to what to do in this case, but you can see already the reaction from trump world and from the white house. president biden views that, you know, his people view this as an indication that, you know, it's easy for these documents to ina

let's get straight to our senior justice correspondent, evan perez.we will hear from the attorney general next hour. do we know it is about this? >> reporter: we anticipate that it is about this. the justice department is in a very tight spot here. they're in a very difficult position because, obviously, the president and his team did not tell the full story when they issued a statement on monday about finding a batch of documents, classified documents, they said at the time fewer than a dozen. what they didn't tell us was in a subsequent search that there were additional documents that were found, and the question is when did they have that information and why didn't they tell the world immediately? because now there's a perception that has been created that they're hiding something, and that has put the attorney general now in a position where, you know, he might have to appoint a special counsel or at least open a fuller investigation of this matter. just to catch people up, what the white house says happened is that they found a second set of docu

obviously, there has been divergence in those two issues, and that, according to our colleague evan perez put a role in the decision by the attorney general today. >> phil mattingly, appreciate it. joining us are to cnn legal analyst and justice department veterans, elie williams and elie honig. elliott, just from a messaging standpoint and accuracy standpoint, the white house could have come out the day president biden spoke. they could've acknowledge that there are more documents found, being upfront about it, and they did not. >> the white house messaging was a mess, and it's self destructive, and the specific, biggest problem they have is this. here's the timeline, in of amber, joe biden's lawyers want to inform classified documents in his office. in december, they want it found about documents in his home. in january, two days ago, they came out and said, we found classified documents in the office, but they made no mention of the home. that is utterly inexplicable. of course, that is a pr problem, but more than the. when your prosecutor and a subject of an investigation like this, y

. >> cnn correspondent evan perez joins us now. what do we know about this latest discovery and i suppose the question is are they looking for more? >> reporter: the second question is very much an important one for the justice department as to what they do next, right. but what we know, jim, very limited information, which is that there was a second set of documents that were discovered in a subsequent search. we heard the white house, they put out a statement this week in which they said that a set of documents that include classified documents had been found in a -- and turned over after november 2nd. this is the first time they addressed this. this didn't tell us complete story, which is that subsequent to that search they had done additional searches and found another set of documents. it's unclear why they didn't disclose that from the outset. and really what they've done is created a perception that they're hiding something. which is made it perhaps even more likely that attorney general merrick garland will have to appoint

and evan perez -- evan, let's get more details on this story. what you are hearing from your sources tonight. >> john, what we know is that these documents -- we don't know what is in the documents. but we know that they were classified at the level of sensitive compartmented information. this is among some of the closely guarded u.s. government secrets. that is the reason why this has now being reviewed by prosecutors at the justice department. by the u.s. attorney in chicago of the -- which handles these matters. they do damage assessment to see whether there in the six years that these documents were being held in a location that is not secure, whether there is any damage that has been done to national security. of course, the white house says that the white house is cooperating with this review that is being done by the national archives and the justice department. and they say this is obviously something that even the former president -- even the president was not aware of until these documents were found by his legal team as they were tryi

. >> evan perez, thank you very much. lindell and a little-known trump lawyer are the candidates for an important position and ron desantis is weighing in on who he wants or does not want tonight, showing his powerful role in the party. plus, president biden thinking the 26-year-old hero who tackled the shooter who killed 11 people. wow! same deal! yeah! it's kind of our thing. what if i'm nenew to at&t? cam, can you? - nice! - hey! but what about for existing cus- it's the same deal! is he okay? at at&t, we give everyone our best deals on every smartphone. get up to $1000 off on our most popular smartphones. >>> tonight, new blood. florida governor ron desantis weighing in on the bitter battle dividing the republican party. who will be the next chair of the rnc. it's a race that now includes a former trump lawyer and even the mypillow ceo. desantis arguing there needs to be changes after the party's poor midterm election results. >> huge majorities y s oof the think the country is going in the wrong direction. the senate

our senior justice correspondent evan perez is working sources for us. what's the latest, evan?department and the biden administration, the biden legal team rather had a lot of discussions over the last few weeks after the discovery of the documents in november. the justice department was prepared to seek a search warrant if they did not get the consent from the president's team. we're told that the possibility of this was not explicitly and wasn't raised directly with the biden team and the two sides did come to an agreement and you saw that extraordinary search of 13 hours at the wilmington home of the sitting president. extraordinary for the fbi to do but behind the scenes, you had a lot of discussions going back and forth. in the end, the biden team viewed what they were doing as very corporative and viewed themselves trying to follow, on the other end, they had to make sure they were handling things the same as they were handling the trump investigation, wolf. >> i want you to stay with us and bring in our senior political correspondent abby phillip. senior law enforcement

. >> evan perez, thank you so much. >>> we have new cnn reporting this morning about house oversightmily transactions from the treasury department, including bank activity reports, what's known as sars, suspicious activity reports. >> joining us to discuss is errol lewis, and molly --. whether it's questions about biden and hunter biden, we're getting a clear sense of what the targets of a republican-controlled house would be. >> that's right. they have been saying for a while now, since before the election, this is what they planned to. if they got control of the house, just on a practical level, investigations and accountability and oversight are really one of the only things that the republican joifrt can do unilaterally. and importantly, since we've seen how divided they were against themselves, this is something they broadly agree on. this is a house republican majority decrying what they call partisan witch hunts for a while, and now they get to investigate. we'll see what they turn up. >> a number of them ran on these grievances, and the promise of investigations, special inve

evan perez has more on this. first we want to go to arlitt saenz at the white house. >> reporter: president biden has become frustrated with how this classified documents information has overtaken so much of what the white house has been doing. they have had a positive streak of news over the past few weeks but really this conversation about the class fight documents is what has been dominating lately. president biden today returned to the white house from his home in wilmington, delaware, and he did not answer questions from reporters including whether he would possibly sit down for an interview with the special counsel as that investigation proceeds. now this all comes as those five additional pages of classified material were found at the president's home over the weekend and you've heard from both the white house counsel here and also from the president's personal lawyers say they're going to start referring questions to the special counsel as this investigation gets underway. in addition to the special couns

evan perez joins me live. what do we know about next steps? >> reporter: one of the big questions that hangs over this is whether the attorney general should order a full-scale investigation, a full-blown investigation of this now that the initial -- the preliminary work review that was being done by the trump appointee u.s. attorney in chicago, now that has been completed, he has briefed the attorney general and the leadership at doj. now the attorney general has to decide what are the next steps? those, of course, could include just launching a new full-scale investigation. it could be whether to appoint a special counsel to look at this. you know, of course, there's a special counsel looking at the handling of classified documents investigations of donald trump. there is john durham out there. we are joking the department of justice is the department of special counsels. this is something that is a very big concern for the white house. they do not want to see a special counsel in this. they would like to see this wrapped up instead. >> the

i want to bring in our senior justice correspondent evan perez working the story.ng on what the attorney general is facing appointing yet another special counsel? >> reporter: of course, top of minds of everyone including people at the white house who comparisons with the discovery of sdodocuments in the presiden private home and office really show perhaps maybe there should be a special counsel appointeds in this case with former vice president pence, and you know, talking to people at the department of justice, you know you get the sense that they view it differently. they see the decision to do a special counsel is not exactly clear. it's not exactly the same issue, and part of it is because mike pence is not declared candidate for president. a lot of people think mike pence is going to run for president but has not yet declared that. the justice department viewed appointment of special counsels in the trump and biden case as a matter of, appearance of conflict of interests for merrick garland, the attorney general and the department in the case of trump obvious

cnn's evan perez has the details. >> that's right. this is a long-time attorney for president biden, political campaign attorney. his name is pat moore and he's based out of boston and he was among the people who was at the penn biden center, the private office that president biden was using during the trump years and this is where the first set of documents were found back in november and as part of that initial review that was done by the u.s. attorney in chicago, john lausch, the fbi was doing an be assessment. they interviewed pat moore as well as a number of other people who were involved in the moving of the documents and in the case of pat moore he was there when they found these initial documents. among the things that we've learned is that, you know, they immediately obviously returned those documents they found, the classified documents, to the national archives. our jamie gangel said out of an abundance of caution they took a bunch of boxes, even if they didn't have classified information, decided to return it, give it to t

evan perez, cnn, washington. >>> a former trump white house official said pence having the documents could just have been a mistake. >> i was surprised. first and foremost, i think mike pence is a man of integrity and he's a very responsible and serious person. in the trump white house he was somebody i trust to do something by the books more than anybody else on the campus. it makes biden's case for him, which is that accidents happen. the thing that stood out to me knowing mike pence, as an example, he would often have us do briefings in "the situation room" in case we discussed something that was classified even if that wasn't the intent because he took classification so seriously. this indicates it was a mistake, most likely a staff error. keep in mind the timing, this is a hasty transition after january 6th. my guess is that he was not packing boxes heading -- you know, getting ready for a transition in that period and staff were rushed to do it last minute and that's how it was able to happen. >> the discovery is either good news for joe biden or donald trump depending on whom

let's go to our senior justice correspondent evan perez working the story for us.s here "the situation room." what are you learning about this latest discovery of classified documents? >> this discovery happened last week. aides to former vice president mike pence did a search and they came across a number of documents about a dozen documents that were classified, that were marked as classified as well as other documents not classified but believed to be government records and so what they did is immediately alerted the national archives and told the justice department and it appears that immediately after that, the justice department sent the fbi to go retrieve those documents. that happened on thursday and just in the last 24 hours, we know that the vice president pence's team managed to send over four boxes of documents to the national archives here in washington. now, this search happened again just in the last few days. they say out of an abundance of caution after what they saw is happening with president biden and his discovery of classified documents at his

let's go to chief white house correspondent phil mattingly and evan perez. phil, the white house press secretary more questions on this today. is there any change in the communication strategy from the white house? >> reporter: no. i don't think the expectation is there's going to be based on what we have seen and to some degree that's a recognition of a new phase one that carries risk with a special counsel. this was a review from a u.s. attorney and the president's personal attorneys doing a search and review. they put this in a different level and set of risk to weigh through this process. that doesn't necessarily help us understand better what happened in the last several months but underscores the fact in the last four days receiving two different statements from the white house press office and omitting the elements of the second there's been a recognition that going out while this review is still underway and letting this drip piece by piece by piece was certainly not helpful and to some degree played a role in the decision to put a special counsel in

arlette saenz and evan perez leading us off. evan, first, this does feel like it's heating up, and we know republicans want more answers. what are they demanding at this point? >> reporter: what they want is for the white house and the justice department to provide more information about exactly what these documents are and how many and where these searches have been done. they want to know everything about this investigation. in contrast with the way they've essentially not wanted to know very much about the investigation involving former president trump and his handling of classified information. but you heard from the republicans. they see a moment, erica, that certainly for the white house and for president biden who were claiming to have the moral high ground. they see that this is not so anymore. here's james comer who is one of the incoming -- one of the new people who's going to be demanding these answers, he's running the oversight committee, talking about this. >> we want to know the visitor logs to the residence, we wa

evan perez is "outfront" in washington. and, evan, this is not a headline they would have wanted.hat more are you learning about a second batch of documents? >> it's not a welcomed headline, especially as merrick garland, the attorney general, is weighing next steps whether to launch a full criminal investigation on this issue whether to perhaps even go to the direction of bringing in a special counsel to do an investigation. those are among the things that could happen next. and what we know from this is that the biden aides did a broader search after finding those initial documents that they turned over to the national archives. of course we know that there were ten classified documents that were found there. we don't know how many documents of classification levels were found in this batch. but obviously what this does is it raises more questions. are there other documents? and certainly among the questions that you hear, you know, people at the justice department in the fbi who have, which is are there possible other classified documents at other locations? because we know, ob

cnn's evan perez joins us now. this is getting really, really messy, what more can you tell us about these documents now at the former vice president's home? >> reporter: this is very messy, especially for the vice president and everyone who's been handling these classified documents. the vice president's team was doing these searches out of an abundance of caution because of what they've seen develop the case of president biden and the documents that have been discovered not only at the penn biden center but also at his home. they uncovered about a dozen documents which they then immediately reached out to the national archives to alert. they found documents they thought might also be presidential records responsive documents, so that's how this all got started. 9:30 p.m. last thursday is when the fbi came to the vice president -- the former vice president's home in carmel, indiana, took possession of these documents. that have classification markings. now, we don't know much about the doubts or what specifically

let's bring in senior white house correspondant traveling with the president in new york city and evan perez let's get more details on this story, what you're hearing from your sources tonight >> john, what we know is that these documents we don't know what is in the documents but we know that they were classified at the level of tfsci, sensitive compartment, which is close government secrets the reason this is reviewed by prosecutors at the justice department by the u.s. attorney in chicago john lou, and the fbi, they do damage assessment to see whether in six years these documents were held in a location that is not secure, whether there's any damage that's been done to national security. of course, this, the white house said that the white house is cooperating with this review being done by the national archives and the justice department, and they say this is obviously something that even the former president -- even the president was not aware of until these documents were found by his legal team as they were trying to shut down this think tank office he set up as he left office in 2017

cnn's senior justice correspondent evan perez has the latest. >> reporter: a lawyer for former vice presidentovered about a dozen documents marked as classified at pence's home last week. those documents are in the hands of the fbi and the j us tis department, which has launched a review of what's in those documents and how they ended up at pence's home in indiana. sources tell cnn that aides to pence were searching boxes at his new home in caramel, in indiana. in the wake of the revelations of the classified materials that were found at president biden's home office. this comes after pence has repeat towedly said he did not have any classified come to umts. did you take any classified documents with you from the white house? >> i did not. our staff reviewed all of the materials in our office and our residence to ensure there were no classified materials that left the white house. >> reporter: lawyer for pence says that the former vice president was unaware that these classified documents were at his home and his attorney told cnn the fbi came to pence's home to pick up the documents with cla

our colleagues paula reid, evan perez and phil mattingly saying that they learned ten of those documentss residence had top secret put on those documents. that's the highest level of classification. so far, this is bringing the total number of documents that have been found, known to have been found, to approximately 20. the president's lawyers previously said that they found some additional documents in his garage as well as an adjacent room. the attorney general had outlined that they had found those -- or that they were notified of those documents, to discoveried at the residence november 20th with another item being found earlier this week. in addition to the documents at the residence, cnn has previously reported that there were ten documents with the markings of classified found at the office down here in washington, d.c., that biden used after he had left the vice presi presidency. included in those ten classified documents were intelligence memos and briefing memos relighting to ukraine, iran, the united kingdom, a memo that then-vice president biden had written to president obam

evan perez is "outfront" on the breaking news.the investigation stands now. >> erin, the justice department and the trump team have been a little bit at lagger heads at they were trying to get access at these two people. we don't know their names, but we know thanks to the reporting from reporters, these two people did go in to the federal grand jury here in washington working with the team of special counsel prosecutors investigating the former president for his mishandling of classified documents found at mar-a-lago. this search these two did back in october did turn up additional documents and it really kind of gives you a sense of how aggressive the prosecutors are being in this case because this is a more complicated case. this is a case involving potential obstruction of justice in contrast to the documents that were found at president biden's home and private office and the documents found at mike pence's home. gives you a sense of how much more aggressive they're being because of the issues and litigation that has been goi

found that they were put in a safe for safekeeping, and as you mentioned, victor, our colleague evan perez is reporting that the justice department's department national security division and the fbi have launched a review of the documents. who packed them up? how did they end up getting there, and exactly what is in the documents, because we don't know yet the level of classification or how sensitive they are. >> and jamie, these revelations must have come as a surprise and shock to the former vice president given what he recently said to this issue on cbs a few weeks ago. >> our staff reviewed all of the materials in our office and in our residence to ensure that there were no classified materials that left the white house or remained in our possession. i remain confident that was done in a thorough and careful way. clearly in the waning days of the trump/pence administration that process was not properly executed by staff around the president of the united states. >> so given what we have just heard from him, how does his camp plan on responding now? >> so, he said that to cbs. he said

>> our colleague, evan perez reports, the fb has worked with us intelligence agency, tonight, to assess exactly that. the level of classification, the potential risk. because let's remember, these papers were not in a secure location. they have been in the pence private home. but according to one source who was briefed on some of the classified documents, based on what they were told, there was nothing particularly unusual in the papers. and they describe the classification markings, these are for some of the documents, as on the quote lower level. the source also said there was no mention of documents with sci or sap markings. these are two designations of the some the most sensitive, classified, top-secret information. that said, we need to into the fbi finishes its assessment. >> and finally, i understand there's new reported by the national archives. >> right. what we have been able to confirm, the archives is looking to sending a letter to all living former presidents, former vice presidents, asking them to go back to their records, and triple check, that there are no classified do

let's get straight to cnn senior justice correspondent evan perez. what do we know about the records? >> jake, what we know and phil mattingly has been told by a source the legal team found these additional documents, the second bach of documents subsequent search after they found the first ten and that in finding these documents, they decided these would be of interest to the federal officials that have been doing the review of this matter. now, as you pointed out, nbc is saying some of these documents are classified that would of course make sense that, you know, the federal officials that have been doing this review, that's what they have been focused on is the classified documents and how they ended up at these locations. now, jake, the question that now arises is why are we learning about this not only just now, right, but the idea that these searches occurred after the initial serve that found those initial batches in november. why is it that the white house has been telling us only about the first bach over the last few days. it appears that t

. >>> evan perez is here with me now.e exclusive reporting on what could be inside some of these documents. >> 98, 99% of the documents were personal documents in the office, including materials about beau biden's funeral. but what we're told is, there were ten classified documents, they are dated from 2013 to 2016. they include such items as intelligence briefings, national security background reports on countries from iran, ukraine and the united kingdom. >> and so they turned over those ten documents to the national archives? >> immediately, they handed over three or four boxes -- >> boxes? >> because it wasn't just the ten boxes. there were some unclassified records that were found that fall under the presidential records act. but within a week, what we now can report exclusively is that the biden team handed over every document that was in that office. so they handed over 50 to 55 other boxes, again, most of this, 99% were personal items, but out of an abundance of caution, they gave it all to the national archives.

most interesting, and we've gotten some reporting on this throughout the course of the day through evan perez colleague, he said this is going to be over very soon, or he hopes it's over very soon. the understanding is this is very much in that process. the u.s. attorney who has been involved in this has already delivered an assessment to u.s. attorney general merrick garland, who would have to make a decision about next steps about where this may go. the president seemed to hint at the possibility that that answer may be coming sooner rather than later. and that's critical, one, to understand the scale of what may be happening next, how significant this may be going forward, but also because white house officials have made clear they feel like they can't talk about the details about this process, about how things have played out over the course of the two months when they knew about this and did not talk about it until that review is complete, until the attorney general has weighed in. so that will be a critical moment for a number of different reasons, not the least of which could answer so

. >> we have evan perez and jamie gangel standing by with the latest in their reporting. evan, what else have you learned so far about this? >> reporter: well, we know, erin, now that the u.s. attorney in chicago is doing a review of these documents. this is what's known as a damage assessment, which is a standard way that the fbi does these things whenever classified information is found or classified documents are found in a place where they were not supposed to be. and that's the circumstance, we understand, happened here. we understand that, according to the white house, which has now provided a statement, they said that the former president's legal team found these documents in november as they were trying to close out an office that he had set up when he had left the vice presidency. this is a university of pennsylvania thinktank that he had set up. they were closing out that office. they say that fewer than a dozen documents were found as part of that. they say that the white house is cooperating with this investigation from the u.s. attorney's office which of cours

. >> our colleague, evan perez, says that the fbi is working with the excess with it. it is potential risks, and let's remember, these papers were not in a secure location. they were in the pence private home. according to one since that was briefed on this classified documents. it is nothing, particularly, unusual in the paper's. they described the classification markings, which are for some of the documents, as on the, quote, lower level. the source also said, there was no mention of a sihai, or s cp markings. those are two of the designations of the most sensitive, classified, top secret information. that said, anderson, we need to wait until the fbi finishes its assessment. >> also, there's new reporting for the national archives? >> really, they've been able to confirm, the archives is looking into sending a letter to all living, former presidents, vice presidents, and asking to go back through the records, and triple check that there are no classified documents. even though we have been told, by all of them, is after trump, biden, and now pence, the parkas clearl

with me to share their reporting, tamara keith, evan perez and elie honig. based on everything we know today and we're open-minded to surprises because they often happen. what is the clearest way to explain the distinction, a trump investigation that's months old, more documents, allegations and some evidence the justice department would say of obstruction or at least not cooperation and what we know. >> i think that's the starkest difference, right, you katelyn is describing this months long process. it is not a cooperative process despite what the former president's team likes to portray. in the case of biden. they are trying to portray that they have been boy scouts on this. they went to the archives as soon as they found the initial set of documents and, of course, while the u.s. attorney in chicago was starting to investigate it, they turned up another set of documents in december 20th and so that's the biggest difference. but we can look at what was happening in the trump case to sort of get a little preview of what we're going to see in the biden case

. >> cnn senior justice correspondent evan perez has the latest on a problem that only seems to be getting bigger for the biden white house. >> pamela, lawyers for president biden say they turned up another five pages of classified documents during a search of his home this week. it is the second time in two days that the white house has had to correct what it says was incomplete information about the number of documents it has found in searches of a number of locations associated with the president. altogether, we are now talking of about 20 classified records that the biden team has found and turned over to the justice department. the shipping story line has created a major political and legal headache for the president who is now the subject of an investigation by a special counsel appointed in recent days by attorney general merrick garland. this all began through discovery of government records including ten classified documents from the obama era at a private office in washington that biden used during the presidency of donald trump. in a second set of classified documents was found

, of course, jim, was an announcement about some ran some wear gang and we shared that with our evan perez. there was more than one effort there to ask some questions about these classified documents that have been found. of course, among former president trump, president biden and former vice president pence's other files and they were having none of it. it was the easiest way to put it. there was a district question asked to the attorney general general and he piv yosted and talked about this. >> we'll continue to follow that story for sure. thanks for join ug today. i'm jim sciutto. >> and i'm erica hill. kate bolduan will pick things up righ t now. [ no audio ] -- as they wait for the city to release videos showing police officers beating tyre nichols. the city's police chief spoke directly to this overnight. describing the video as heinous. that is the word that she used and she's pleading with residents to not react violently when they see it. we know that nichol's family has already seen the video. the family attorney said that it shows officers beating nichols, quote, like a pinata