Reporters grill House Democrats on why Biden classified document finding wasn't disclosed before midterms

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Reporters grill House Democrats on why Biden classified document finding wasn't disclosed before midterms

House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar was asked multiple times Tuesday about whether President Biden should have disclosed that classified documents were found at his think tank office before the midterms.

House Democrats were asked multiple times Tuesday about classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank associated with President Biden.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar was repeatedly asked whether President Biden should have disclosed that classified documents were found at his think tank office before the midterms.

CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS FROM BIDEN'S TIME AS VICE PRESIDENT DISCOVERED AT PENN BIDEN CENTER, WHITE HOUSE SAYS

Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., attends a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center after a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus on Tuesday, July 19, 2022.  (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

"Well, let's let's step back and talk about this for a minute because and I appreciate the question," Rep. Pete Aguilar responded. "This is Republican hypocrisy at its finest. When the former president had 320 documents found in his personal residence, they said that 'that will not be a priority.' What President Biden did was disclose this to the archives, let law enforcement know — that is exactly the way that you should handle this."

Records from Biden's time as vice president were discovered at the think tank by his personal attorneys on Nov. 2, and included a "small number of documents with classified markings," the White House said. The National Archives were notified and took possession of the documents the following day.

PRESIDENT BIDEN IGNORES QUESTION ON WHY CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS WERE FOUND AT HIS THINK TANK

President Biden speaks about inflation and supply chain issues in Los Angeles.  (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Aguilar voiced firm support for Biden despite the discovery of the documents, which reportedly date back to his time as vice president under former President Obama.

He continued, "So we're going to support the fact that the president is following this established protocol that he did the right thing and see what other and see where we go from here. But we're not interested. Republicans aren't interested in having meaningful oversight. They're just interested in opposing this president."

MCCARTHY REACTS TO CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS DISCOVERED FROM BIDEN'S TIME AS VP: DEMS ‘OVERPLAYED THEIR HAND’

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Attorney General Merrick Garland put U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch in charge of reviewing the records.

"This is being done the exact way. Getting the archives involved, someone who was on the January 6 committee," Aguilar responded to further questions. "There is a process to handling documents. The president is handling it the way he should. That's what's important here."

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Photo collage of President Biden and U.S. Attorney John Lausch side by side respectively. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images | Mustafa Hussain/Getty Images)

The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, and opened in Washington, D.C., in February 2018. 

This comes after Biden previously criticized former President Trump after the Federal Bureau of Investigation in August seized classified documents from his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.