The committee hosted three witnesses it touted as 'whistleblowers.' Benghazi: Officials get emotional

The dramatic and personal stories of State Department staffers — one of whom was in Libya at the time of attacks on the U.S. Consulate — injected real emotion into a very political hearing on Benghazi on Wednesday.

In his first full public accounting, Gregory Hicks, a Foreign Service officer and ex-deputy chief of mission in Libya, recounted in vivid detail what happened the night of the attacks. Republicans insist that the Obama administration and the State Department didn’t do nearly enough to aid U.S. personnel under attack in September 2012.


Sure to be trumpeted by Republicans, Hicks’s most explosive revelation centered on an assertion that a four-man special operations team based in Tripoli was allegedly told not to make the flight to Benghazi on the night of the attacks.

( WATCH: Hicks' full account of September 11th attacks in Benghazi)

State and Pentagon officials countered that the team wouldn’t have arrived in Benghazi in time and that it was instead needed in Tripoli.

“They were furious,” Hicks said when asked how the special forces troops responded to orders not to leave Tripoli.

After being prompted by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to provide a full recounting of the attacks, Hicks reached for his water as he told the story of getting a phone call from the Libyan prime minister who confirmed the death of his boss, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.

( PHOTOS: 10 slams on Obama and Benghazi)

“It was the saddest phone call of my life, when he told me Ambassador Stevens had passed away,” Hicks said as his voiced cracked.

Hicks then dramatically described a chaotic night that started when he was awoken by a staffer informing him the Benghazi Consulate was under attack. He picked up the phone and called an unknown number that was answered by Stevens, whom he talked to briefly before the line went dead.

( Also on POLITICO: Graham: 'Foreign policy gone wrong')

Hicks moved to the tactical operations center at the Tripoli Embassy where he began to oversee the response. Hicks was in contact with staff in Benghazi as details trickled out, including that attackers had infiltrated the compound. Hicks said he then learned that the safe house where Stevens and other staffers were hiding had been set on fire by the attackers.

“There were multiple attempts to go into the building and try to save Sean [Smith] and the ambassador,” Hicks said. “They found Sean’s body but did not find the ambassador.”

He eventually spoke with someone who told him that Stevens had been taken to a hospital, although there was worry that the hospital was controlled by the opposition.

Republicans seized on many points in Hicks’s testimony, most specifically on his allegations that the four special operations troops based in Tripoli were told to stand down and not assist in Benghazi. He said those forces were given the order by Special Operations Command Africa.

“I can only again repeat that [SOCAFRICA] Lt. Col. Gibson said he was not to proceed to board the airplane,” Hicks said.

Hicks said the unit was under the control of the military and therefore, neither Hicks nor Gibson could authorize travel to Benghazi.

“I don’t know why,” Hicks said when asked why the team was told not to go to Benghazi. “[There] was every reason to continue to believe that our personnel was in danger.”

The team “could not have arrived in time to mount a rescue,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said on Wednesday. “We responded quickly that evening. We’ve gone through that timeline extensively.”

Little said the events were “against a backdrop of uncertainty and threats to diplomatic missions throughout the region. There was nothing this team could have done to assist” because the attacks in Benghazi were already over.

Separately, the Republicans on the committee questioned why a team known as FEST — the Foreign Emergency Support Team — a State Department organization based in the U.S. that has been used to respond to crisis and emergency situations, was never sent.

The Pentagon and State have said the FEST team lacked the capacity to respond and that timing and distance wouldn’t allow it to get to Libya in time.

While former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lately become the prime target in the Benghazi controversy, she got minimal attention during Wednesday’s hearing. Democrats sought early on to defend her, but for the most part the questioning focused on other issues.

Late in the day, Hicks told the committee that Clinton was the reason Stevens was in Benghazi.

“We understood the secretary planned to visit Tripoli later in the year,” Hicks said. “We hoped she would be able to announce a permanent position there.”

“[Clinton told him], ‘We need to make Benghazi a permanent post,’ and Chris said, ‘I’ll make it happen,’” Hicks said.

Some Republicans — like Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) — focused on why United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice said on Sunday talk shows that the attacks were prompted by an anti-Islam YouTube video.

Gowdy asked Hicks what his reaction was when Rice made those remarks.

“I was stunned, my jaw dropped and I was embarrassed,” Hicks said.

Hicks also blamed Rice’s comments for the 17-day delay in getting approval from the Libyan government to send FBI investigators to the scene of the attacks.

“I think it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team to Benghazi,” Hicks said of Rice’s comments.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told the committee that Hicks had previously been informed by a lawyer at State not to cooperate with the House investigation and not to speak with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).

Hicks responded by saying that he was in fact told not to participate.

“Has that ever happened where lawyers get on the phone prior to a congressional delegation investigating?” Jordan asked. “Have you ever had anyone tell you, ‘Don’t talk with the people in Congress coming to find out what’s what?’”

“Never,” Hicks responded.

Eric Nordstrom, who was responsible for overseeing the agency that secured the consulate prior to the attack, began choking up as he spoke in his opening statement about the loss of fellow co-workers. His voice cracking, Nordstrom praised the committee for continuing its probe.

“It matters. It matters personally; it matters to my colleagues,” Nordstrom said. “My colleagues at the Department of State. It matters to the American public to whom we serve. Most importantly, it matters to friends of Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, who were murdered on Sept. 11, 2012.”

Before it even began, House Republicans vowed to elicit damning information from the witnesses at the hearing, insisting that the full truth has still not been extracted from the Obama administration in its handling of the attacks on U.S. diplomatic outposts.

“I think the dam is about to break on Benghazi,” Sen. Lindsey Graham wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday. “We’re going to find a system failure before, during and after the attacks. We’re going to find political manipulation seven weeks before an election. We’re going to find people asleep at the switch when it comes to the State Department, including Hillary Clinton.”

The committee hosted three witnesses it touted as “whistleblowers” including Hicks, Nordstrom and Mark Thompson, the acting deputy assistant secretary of counterterrorism.

Democrats contended that the hearing was purely political and not actually aimed at obtaining information. For their part, the Pentagon and the State Department have denied accusations that there were unnecessary delays in sending aid.

Committee ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) sought to push back against the Republican line of attack before the testimony even began.

“I am not questioning the motives of our witnesses; I’m questioning the motives of those who want to use their statements for political purposes,” Cummings said. “I respect the witnesses that are here today to offer their testimony. … Today’s hearing is not the full story; I hope we will eventually hear our military, our intelligence and our officials.”

He argued against claims that the administration delayed relief efforts from military teams stationed in nearby parts of the world.

“Of all the irresponsible allegations leveled over the last few weeks, this is the most troubling,” Cummings said. “This allegation is just untrue.”

Stephanie Gaskell contributed to this report.