McCarthy reacts to classified documents discovered from Biden's time as VP: Dems 'overplayed their hand'

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McCarthy reacts to Biden classified docs

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reacts to Obama/Biden classified docs discovered when Biden's attorneys were vacating Penn Biden Center.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., says Democrats "overplayed their hand" in the handling of the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago in light of new revelations of classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center, which were taken by now-President Joe Biden after his time as vice president nearly six years ago.

"I think from … the same point that the Dems overplayed their hand on the Mar-a-Lago … just a proof of that," McCarthy responded Monday evening to a reporter's question about the new reports that Biden took a batch of records from Biden's time as vice president. 

A "small number of documents with classified markings" were discovered at the Penn Biden Center by the president's personal attorneys on Nov. 2, according to Richard Saubel, special counsel to the White House.

The attorneys found the documents in a locked closet while preparing to vacate office space at the center, which the president used from mid-2017 until he began the 2020 campaign.

McCarthy, left, says new Biden classified documents reveal Democrats were "trying to be political to President Trump," right. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

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"Oh really? They just now found them? After all these years?" McCarthy said to a reporter who distinguished the Biden-era documents with last year's FBI raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida in search of classified documents taken after Trump lost his reelection bid in 2020.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

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Later on Monday, McCarthy told reporters, "I just think it goes to prove what they tried to do to President Trump, overplayed their hand on that, that they even had themselves even longer."

Local law enforcement officers are seen in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Aug. 9, 2022. (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)

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"They've been around even longer," he said. "President Trump had never been in office before and had just left, came out. Here's an individual [who] spent his last 40 years in office and still had this from the vice president."

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"It just shows that they were trying to be political to President Trump," McCarthy added.

Fox News' Brianna McClelland contributed to this report.