(UPDATED) NEW YORK CITY: Documents with classified markings were discovered in former United States vice president Mike Pence residence in Indiana 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 Federal Bureau of Investigation (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 (AP).