let me add my voice to my colleagues. thank you for your service. it should go without saying, but nonetheless we do appreciate it. you have answered this, so i just wanted clarification. there was a lawyer who came in who is not allowed to go to the because he was not qualified. the state department sent in this lawyer. were you told why the lawyer was sent? >> it to participate in all the meetings and all events associated with the congressman's visit. never have occurred before in my career. did the state department say the lawyer was going to come and participate in all of the meetings? you were told that? yes. >> you mentioned the town of the state department changed probably after the rice interview. >> it began to change. >> give us examples of how things changed. have my management style counseled by assistant secretary jones. when she visited, she counseled me on my management style sang the staff was upset. there was no indication of staff being upset. again, when i returned to washington, she delivered a very blistering critique of my style and again exclaimed saying, i do not know why larry pope would want you back. >> that leads to an obvious question. 2012,to september 10th, had you received any negative feedback from your superiors? no. chris trusted me, i trusted him. we worked together very well. morale was high. >> i suppose in a career as long as your as you might have some disagreement with your superiors. was it to the extent that you felt you were treated after this event, last september, compared to maybe prior this agreement to have with your superiors? of 1-10, 10 being the worst -- >> 10. >> i guess that is what i want to follow up on. feel inioned that you the job you have, it's really a demotion from the qualifications you have had in your career in the services. have you spoken to many of your colleagues are senior leaders in the state department regarding this? if so, what were those conversations about? after a couple of friends outside the department intervened with senior officials deputymy situation, secretary burns said that would be taken care row. the same thing that larry pope indicated. -- said that i would be taken care of. i met with the assistant secretary for human resources and i talked to him about what options might be available to me. basically the answer was i would have to go through the normal bidding process for assignments and persuade someone that i should be hired. and then the conversation with deputy secretary burns was centered around discussions i had had with the leadership of our embassy in mexico city about getting in job there that would be a very good job. he said that he would support that, but i had to go through the process, and it's a very long process because the position is that a higher grade. >> i understand there are protocols, but does that strike you as unusual, someone with your background in the position that you had in libya and other areas? >> i was surprised that i was having to go through the normal process. especially when the ambassador in mexico city had talked to deputy secretary bonds about -- barnes about bringing me on as his counsel. >> if there is any retribution, my words not yours, that you would have full support of your colleagues and i land them my support and, i think, the support of everyone here. bipartisan support of someone who has a difference of agreements on a policy issue or decision that killed four americans deserves to have whatever we can give to you, so thank you so much. my time is expired. asknd the time we can witnesses to stay seated with out a break has also expired. for those able to get up and go back and forth, we will take about 10 minutes. you can either go through that door or this door to use facilities available without going out into the public and then we will reconvene in about 10 minutes. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> the committee will come to order again. that we expected to have votes on house floor at approximately 5:00. we can work until about five minutes into the vote, after that we will adjourn. the expectation is we will not come back. for r three witnesses, the families, the attorneys, let me assure you, the end is in sight. gentleat, we go to the lady from wyoming. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you for this long day. to the families, i offer my most sincere condolences from my constituents. they think about you all the time. do i understand that you have responsibility for while you wereya there? >> correct. in july?ft >> correct. >> before you left, did you make security recommendations to washington, d.c.? >> we do an internal rockport, but that is not really a place where we put recommendations. it is more laying out the situation, the crime, the political situation and a lot of that reporting i have done previously with washington. >> they had recommendations from you or not? >> it is my understanding, yes. they wanted a transition plan specifically on how we were going to transition to our local bodyguards. that was submitted to them february 15th. was that implementation plan accepted? was implemented? >> i never really got any feedback from washington. that is one thing that surprised me when i left post. i was never contacted by ds leadership for management from the time i left until this date. the only interaction i had was preparing before the october hearing, but they never contacted me to talk about libya, suggestions, anything like that. mr. hicks, do you know security recommendations are implemented? where there recommendations that are implemented? >> they were following up on many of the things that eric was working on before to strengthen our security posture in libya. after the attacks, john and i worked on and list of physical security improvements that had to be made in tripoli in order for us to remain. i cabled that list in to the department after the congressman's visit and i learned later that cable was not well received by washington leadership's. to their credit, when they saw tot cable, they sent it undersecretary kennedy and insisted every recommendation in the cable be implemented. >> i want to switch gears a little bit. mr. hicks, are you aware of any efforts by department officials to limit department witness's access to information about the attacks prior to their testimony before congress? >> i never seen the classified report, so when my respect, yes. mr. nordstrom, do you know whether the state department consciously sought to limit your awareness of certain information prior to your testimony before this committee? >> on not aware of that. me ask you this. i want to read you an excerpt from an e-mail ambassador stephen sent to you. this was july 5th, 2012. it was a draft cable intended to address an extension of security personnel for the embassy, ultimately sent on july 9th. the ambassador wrote, gentlemen, i've taken a close look at the table, edited it down and my intention was to give more focus to what we're doing to end our reliance on tdy support and let the department figure out how to staff our needs. it looks ok, run this by ds to see if they want this front channel. mr. nordstrom, can you explain what ambassador stephen demands when he asked you to run it by ds to see if they wanted "front channel?" >> that is the process by which we would send officials department cable. for prayer it requests and it was my advice that we would in fact send that front channel. within the department, that is considered to be the official record. if i sense something by e-mail or informally discussed by telephone, it is still valuable, but unless it is on the cable, it's not official. my experience in the past was as soon as we put those recommendations, as greta alluded to come as soon as we put that on an official cable, somehow we were seen as embarrassing the department of state because we are requiring them to live up to their end of the bargain. >> we now go to the gentleman from georgia. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i add my thanks to the gentleman on the panel. and i have heard it over and over again, but only because we believe it. we're grateful to you, not just for being here today, but for your decades upon decades of service. i know people at u.s. posts across the world are competent. there are men and women who do what you do who lives by a code that says, if you are in harm's way that we will come for you. i thank you very much for that commitment. >> thank you. >> mr. nordstrom, a follow up on my colleague's question from wyoming, early july, 2012. recall your back-and- forth it particularly? >> vividly. >> what did you think of that decision making process? for those decisions being kicked up to a higher level? >> it was unclear. but onelargely in was, thing that struck me through the entire time that i was in libya was a strange decision making process, specifically, again, the undersecretary for management in many ways dealing directly with the director. as her supervisor two levels ahead, they had the ability to do that. , but it was strange that there is that direct relationship. i never really saw interaction from the assistant d.a. or are director. it was even more clear in october when we were all sitting up here and there were two levels, if you will come about were not reflected and it was quite a jump between that plan and undersecretary kennedy. that anythinglt they were deciding certainly had been run by undersecretary kennedy. >> given the seriousness of that conversation, extending security support, did you receive an explanation for why the request was denied that satisfy you? >> i did not. as i testified before, what i perceived that it was some kind of explanation that it would be somehow embarrassing more politically difficult for the state department to continue to rely on dod and there was an element of that, but it was never verbalized, but that was certainly the feeling that i got from that conversation. moving these discussions from back channel to front channel, was the nature of your conversation with the ambassador? this was such a serious issue that, rather than leaving it with a negative, he wanted to elevated? >> that's exactly what it is. i recall back to our first meeting with the congressman and chairman. that was the question that i think they posed to me. the new issues going to keep saying no, why did you keep asking? because of the right thing to do and it was resources that were needed. the people on the other side felt was the right thing to do, to say no, that could have had the courtesy to put that in the official record. what did you receive any feedback from washington whether a direct answer to the cable or the fact that you raised it to the front channel process? >> by the time we sent the one in july, i did not receive a response. that cable was never responded to, which is something that is relatively unheard of. when you send a request cable for anything, a copier, a manpower request, they get back to you. i had a number of conversations wherey regional director it was a discouraging, to put it mildly, about why you keep raising these issues and moving this forward. >> if you could characterize this between non-response and it is agreement, when it comes to these issues of security for american personnel on the ground in libya, were you receiving a non-response from washington, or disagreement with your assessment of levels of need on the ground? >> i largely got a non-response. the responses that i did get were that you did not have specific targetting, specific threats against you. the long and short as you are not dealing with suicide , andrs, incoming artillery vehicle bombs like they are in iraq and afghanistan. time hasntleman's expired. we now go to the gentleman from illinois, mr. davis. much, mr.ou very chairman. this is a long day with lots of questions and answers that have been shared, but let me ask the gentleman on this panel. last week, an unidentified individual described as a military special ops member appeared on national television to give an interview on the military's response to the attack in benghazi. the man appeared behind a black screen in order to conceal his identity. he suggested that military assets in europe could have prevented the second attack in benghazi, specifically saying, "i know for a fact that the commandercommand cif and extremist force was during a training exercise not in the region of north africa but in europe. they had the ability to react and respond. he further stated, we have the birds, to get on aircraft, and fly their." they have the ability to be there, in my opinion, in four or six hours. he went on to conclude that they would have been there before the second attack. are any of you gentlemen familiar with this claim? >> i saw on television. investigate the claim, last week, ranking member cummings road a letter to secretary hagel asking for the department's response and we have now received a written response from the department and i would like to enter that letter into the record, mr. chairman. >> we will take it under advisement. i have not seen it. >> in response to the allegation that the force could have arrived in benghazi prior to the initiation of the second attack on the amex, the time needed from alerting the forced to land at the benghazi airport is greater than the approximately 7.5 hours between the initiation of the first attack and that of the second. the letter also states that the time requirements for notification for loading in transit alone prevented the cif to be at the amex in times enough to change these events. -- at the annex. does anyone disagree with that statement? >> the only thing i would add to that, not being privy to the decisions on the ground is that what is valuable is none of us, including the committee, had those details but for the person coming forward making that allegation. that minorityint leader cummings made. we're going to continue to see this kind of allegations because people do not feel that the answers have been provided or that they have been provided in a credible way. it is much more important to get it done in this manner. >> thank you very much. trying to be consistent with the report that says, and die quote, "they found no evidence in delays of a response militaryt from the combatant commanders. the safe evacuation of all u.s. government personnel from benghazi 12 hours after the initial attack and, subsequently, this was the result of exceptional u.s. government coordination and military response to help save the lives of two severely wounded americans. that't know who unidentified individual was on fox news, but according to the defense department, his claim is incorrect. mr. chairman, i simply wanted to get that into the record. >> will the gentleman yield? >> yes. unyielding to miss maloney. >> thank you very much. by all accounts, embassador stevens was a remarkable man. were you aware of how dangerous it was in benghazi? were you aware how dangerous it was coming yet he still made the decision to go there? but the gentle lady's time has expired. you may answer. >> yes, the ambassador is a very well aware of the situation in benghazi. before we went, we had the chance to operate with the officer. >> the gentleman from kentucky. >> mr. chairman, thank you for holding these hearings. and has been said that all is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. we have three very good man here going beyond the call of duty to come here to testify today and have my commitment to protect them from any retribution that may come from this. i get a sense there may be other people listening to the testimony today who have answers we do not have yet and i would encourage them to come forward does well. we have gotten a lot of good dancers today thanks to these witnesses. i would like to start with mr. thompson. i am struck by her long and distinguished career of hostage rescue missions and some of these missions are still classified, but they were successful. in your mind is where you were when these events began to unfold? >> at my desk in the state department. asked to marshal the resources for the team to help with the rescue effort, did you not? >> yes, my first call was to the national security council. >> in your testimony you were told that it was not the correct time. >> when i referred the question to the undersecretary for management's office, yes. >> if this was not the right time, when would be so? this is a source of frustration that the american public has, that i have. we are the greatest country in the world and we let people defend fortially themselves when we had the resources. when would be the right time if it was not then? "there's no answer. staying with the topic of time, in an uncertain situation like this crisis when we do not know what's going to unfold, was there sufficient communication that you could have pulled back emission ready to deploy? -- a mission? >> we practice this twice per year, a complete deployment and this is staffed with interagency professionals. the answer to your question is, yes. the plan funded by dod has a robust communications suite. the senior communicator on their works for me and he's a very competent man added job. >> i know you have not been allowed or review to even contribute to the accountability review board's report, but are you convinced that changes have been made so that this will not happen again for another embassy? >> no. >> that's troubling to me and i appreciate your candor. mr. hicks camille mentioned at 2:00 a.m., you have a phone conversation of secretary clinton. is that correct? >> yes. >> did she ask what resources you might be able to use or might need? >> she did. we asked for security reinforcements and transporting our wounded out of the country to a medical facility. >> was there any indication that you would receive air support? that the marine team was being deployed to bolster our security posture in tripoli and that a c-17 would be coming down to take people back. >> no immediate military response? >> the marines were on their way and they would be arriving later on the 12th. >> did you tell the accountability review board about secretary clinton's interest in establishing a permanent presence in benghazi? ostensibly, wasn't that the reason the ambassador was going to benghazi? >> yes, i did tell the accountability review board that. wanted thelinton post made permanent and ambassador pickering was surprised. he looked both ways to the members on the board asking if the seventh floor new about it. another factor in his decision was the understanding that secretary clinton intended to visit tripoli in november. thatckering was surprised his mission was to establish a permanent facility there? >> yes. >> that your impression? >> yes. >> will the gentleman yield? i just want you to say one reason the- the ambassador was in benghazi, at least one reason -- >> at least one reason he was in benghazi was to further the secretary's wish that the post become a permanent constituent post. also we understood the secretary intended to visit tripoli later in the year. tohoped she would be able announce to the libyan people are establishment of a permanent constituent post in benghazi at that time. >> thank you. >> will the gentleman yield? >> i thank the gentleman for yielding. we now go to the gentleman from georgia. >> thank you, mr. chair, and i appreciate it. it's been a long day and there have been some interesting thing said. something that concerns me that these hearings have not found a smoking gun or even a warm slingshot. i, for one, and not looking for those things. i'm looking for the truth, what happened that night. the one in have found, it may not be a smokin