As Pence plays president-in-waiting, he's hiding private emails in Indiana

Over 50 pending requests for records during Pence’s tenure are being held up, some of them are over 10 months old. USA Today reports, “Pence still hasn’t provided all of his emails from private accounts that he used to conduct state business.” And when Pence has provided those documents to the state, they have been in paper form rather than digital, “making them difficult to search in response to public records requests.”

Gerry Lanosga, former president of Indiana Coalition for Open Government, told the paper, “I think it’s pretty clear that there is some foot-dragging going on here.”

The inquiries are an attempt to uncover the contents of Pence’s communications across a spectrum of controversial issues he promoted as governor. These include the so-called “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” which would have allowed businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; the HIV outbreak that developed in the state after Pence cut funding to Planned Parenthood; and Pence’s role in the spread of lead poisoning in East Chicago, Indiana.

Pence used the private AOL email account, which was compromised and hacked, while he was hypocritically attacking Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server — which was never compromised.

The effort to keep this information out of the public eye is occurring as Pence and his political allies are pushing the falsehood that he is disconnected from the multiple scandals enveloping the Trump administration, when in reality Pence is a central figure in the Trump-Russia investigations. Some Republicans have been floating the idea that Pence could easily take over the role of president if Trump is removed from office.

Despite these attempts at separation and distance, Pence has already demonstrated his willingness to emulate Trump and his penchant for secrecy and deception.

Once again, the evidence shows the two men aren’t that different.