This Wednesday, three State Department officials will testify before the House Oversight Committee on the subject of the attacks in Benghazi last year. They've been previously referred to as "whistleblowers" and have been intimidated by the Obama Administration. Now, as Fox News reports, their identities have been revealed for the first time.
Appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be three career State Department officials: Gregory N. Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks; Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for Operations in the agency’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was the regional security officer in Libya, the top security officer in the country in the months leading up to the attacks.Nordstrom previously testified before the oversight committee, which is chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., in October 2012. Of the three witnesses, he is the only one who does not consider himself a whistleblower. At last fall's hearing, however, Nordstrom made headlines by detailing for lawmakers the series of requests that he, Ambassador Stevens, and others had made for enhanced security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in the period preceding the attacks, requests mostly rejected by State Department superiors.
"For me the Taliban is on the inside of the [State Department] building," Nordstrom testified, angry over inadequate staffing at a time when the threat environment in Benghazi was deteriorating.
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All eyes will be on the Benghazi hearing on Wednesday, where the Benghazi whistleblowers will detail exactly what happened and how the Obama Administration has bungled both the lead-in to the attack in Libya and the post-attack spin.
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