Hillary Clinton
Hillary ClintonReuters

Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz said Sunday that he believes former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton purposely prevented the public release of details pertaining to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

"What I think is that she has deliberately stonewalled," Cruz said in an interview with ABC News.

"The American people deserve the truth; our men and women in harm's way deserve the truth," he added.

Clinton and President Barack Obama’s administration have been criticized over their handling of the September 11, 2012 attack at the Benghazi consulate, in which the American ambassador to Libya and three others were killed.

Republicans allege security failings led up to the attack and have also claimed there was a possible cover-up over Al-Qaeda's role in the attack.

In a testimony in 2013, Clinton said she took responsibility for the September 11, 2012 attack and cited a "personal" commitment to improving security provisions for U.S. diplomatic missions overseas.

Although Cruz did not directly say in the interview that he believes Clinton's handling of Benghazi should disqualify her from running for president, he had a quick response when asked for the case against a Hillary Clinton presidency.

The senator pointedly tied Clinton to what he said were the failures of the Obama administration, referring to an "Obama-Clinton" foreign policy and saying that the low labor-force participation rate under Obama is a reason not to vote for Hillary.

"Her policies, domestically and internationally, haven't worked," charged Cruz.

"Domestically the Obama economic agenda is a disaster; we've got the lowest labor force participation since 1978; millions of hardworking Americans, their lives have gotten harder."

Cruz argued that "internationally, the Obama-Clinton foreign policy is a disaster… Every region of the world has gotten worse; America has weakened, our enemies have been strengthened."

Obama’s foreign policy has been the subject of several recent attacks by Republicans. Senator John McCain from Arizona recently said that Obama is the most "naive president in history."

In January, McCain similarly criticized Obama, opining, "I thought Jimmy Carter was bad, but he pales in comparison to this president in my view." He has also attacked current Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to force through a peace deal in Israel, calling him a "human wrecking ball".