Rubio: 'I just want to congratulate those like Fox News' for pushing Benghazi

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Thursday thanked the Fox News channel for everything they had done to promote the idea that President Barack Obama's administration deliberately allowed four Americans to die in Benghazi, Libya last year.

Following a day of near wall-to-wall Fox News coverage of the House Oversight Committee hearings on Benghazi, Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy asked Rubio for a reaction.

"Very insightful and there's a lot more to be learned now," the Florida Republican opined. "Here's what we know about Benghazi. First of all, that post probably shouldn't have been opened. And the people in charge, Secretary Clinton and the State Department, they had a steady stream of reporting that showed how dangerous it was."

"You know, I just want to congratulate those like Fox News and others that have kept on this issue," he added. "Because this is not about politics. This is about accountability. Someone needs to be held accountable for what's happened here. But it's also about preventing this from happening in the future."

Rubio asserted that the administration had tried to cover up "any reference to terrorism" because of political motivations during an election year.

"What I think is sad is how many people that are around the administration -- including the former secretary of state, Secretary Clinton -- knew this to be the case and allowed this to move forward anyway," he remarked. "You would have hoped that people would have stood up and said, 'This is wrong, the American people deserve the truth.' That didn't happen."

Websites like The Washington Post and Politico took Rubio's criticism as an early jab at former Secretary Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 presidential race.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi last year, Fox News has served as a platform for Republicans who have tried to turn the tragedy into a scandal, first to damage President Barack Obama's bid for re-election, then to derail U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice's chances to be secretary of state and now to focus on Clinton.

Even Fox News host Megyn Kelly observed during the Wednesday hearings that the network had gotten a "little lopsided" by favoring Republicans.

Watch this video from Fox News' Fox & Friends, broadcast May 9, 2013.