Kerry said on Friday that this week’s congressional hearing about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi did not reveal anything new.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that this week's congressional hearing about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi did not reveal anything new, amid renewed criticism on the Obama administration's handling of the incident.

"What I've seen thus far, I have to tell you, after all of the hearings that I took part in as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, all of the briefings that I took part in, many of which were classified, I really haven't learned anything new," Kerry said at an online event organized by Google.

At a congressional hearing on the attack earlier this week, several State Department officials criticized the department -- led by Hillary Clinton at the time -- for how it had responded to the attack. The Republicans have also raised their voices, accusing the Obama administration of trying to distort what really happened in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack.

Kerry said that he respected the three State Department employees who testified at the hearings, and he understood that their experience during the attack was emotional.

"It's a tragedy," he said. "But I hate to see it turn into a pure, prolonged, political process that really doesn't tell us anything new about the facts."

Four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, were killed in a deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last September.