Washington Free Beacon reporter Lachlan Markay appeared on the Fox Business Network on Thursday to discuss the ongoing hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
Markay said he doubts that any "bombshell" revelations will emerge from the marathon hearing with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but that potent political issues could emerge from the committee's final report on the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack and the U.S. government's muddled response to it.
He cautioned Republican presidential candidates to wait until the committee's final report is released before weighing in on the issue.
Transcript below:
NEIL CAVUTO: Maybe the Republicans should be focusing on different things, less on Benghazi and more on—well, they are not laying a glove on Hillary Clinton despite passions to the opposite on the right—and I wonder whether they should be paying more attention to the economy and what's happening there because if Wall Street is reflecting improvement it could be a far bigger worry for them.
LACHLAN MARKAY: I think that most Americans, you know, they're watching this hearing today—and most Americans are not watching this hearing today—but for those that are, if they're not following the issues to a tee, their eyes are glazing over. It's hard to follow this chain of events so I don't think it's going to be a winning issue to really harp on what went on September 11th, 2012 in Benghazi for Republicans at this stage in the political process. I do think as this FBI investigation unfolds, whether or not that was the intention of Republican investigators to begin with, this FBI investigation is happening.
CAVUTO: Right.
MARKAY: That could potentially produce some potent political issues, but candidates should still be talking about the economy. I don't think it's either/or. I don't see much in the way of bombshell political attack ads coming out of this hearing.
CAVUTO: I wonder, too, for those who on Tuesday are just tuning in, that maybe they sort of calibrated the likelihood of the FBI, you know, going after her, Hillary Clinton, over this whole thing, the emails, Benghazi or both, it's going down, way down, and that she'll dodge any problems here. What do you think?
MARKAY: Yeah, you know, there's really—the only thing Republican candidates can do right now is really sit back and wait and see what happens and I think that probably puts them in a better position to say, look, this was not a political issue for me, I wasn't jumping on this bandwagon from the outset, I waited to see what the facts showed us and now they’re showing us that Clinton did this or that wrong or maybe that she's exonerated, and come out looking like they were more moderate in their approach to the issue. So, it's something that's going to be used in the general election far more than the primary, obviously, in any case, so I don't see the harm on holding off on that for now and focusing on the economy. I think that’s a much bigger issue for voters.
CAVUTO: Another argument with the base, it's certainly, the Democratic base it's not going to hurt Hillary Clinton. They think it's politicized. Republicans always think that go after her, go after her. An argument that the right feels strongly about continuing to push this Benghazi stuff and many argue passionately it should. The left not so much. But with independents, in the general election, independents are surprisingly very focused on this, depending on the poll, and say it's partly or fully justified. So, that's almost a year from now. It is a year from now. Would it be an issue a year from now? What's your thinking?
MARKAY: That depends on what is turned up between now and then.
CAVUTO: In other words, whether the FBI does something?
MARKAY: Right, and if there are any major revelations that come out of the congressional committee's investigation. I think that most voters want to make sure that, you know, we have active oversight and accountability for our public officials, especially ones as high ranking as Hillary Clinton was. They're horrified by what happened in Benghazi and they want to make sure that every angle is explored there and if there was wrongdoing, the people are held accountable for that. I think as long as that's the focus of the committee, you'll see, not Democrats, but obviously Republicans and a lot of more middle of the road voters are going to continue supporting it.
CAVUTO: Too early to tell, we'll see. Thank you, appreciate it very much.
MARKAY: You bet.