down for a request for more security. this is our ambassador. appreciate you giving this proposal consideration even if the conclusion was not favorable for us. we d be interested in pursuing the other avenue you suggest, high threat trained agents best, chris. so i have this contrast in my mind. the ambassador is newly in place. it s a day after an attack on our facility. your deputy chief of staff is sending him an e-mail from sydney blumenthal asking him to take time to read and react to it. and that s forwarded to you. help us understand how blumenthal had that kind of access to you but the ambassador did not. mr. chairman, i think your question does help to clarify
plrly residents. the diplomatic security officers were able to get both chris and shawn into that safe room. of course, the idea behind the safe room, why security experts advocated for them was to protect our civilians, our diplomats from attacks like the one that was occurring. the attackers used diesel fuel to set the compound on fire. and the safe room was anything but safe. i m sure the committee members know that neither chris stevens more shawn smith died from injuries directly inflicted by the attackers. they both died of smoke
security. chris, i know you have your hands full, bewe would like your advice about public messages on the state of violence in libya over the past ten days. so she s asking him for help with public message iing. jake sullivan, which is the other half of the question we didn t get to. i understand chris stevens was a rule follower. i understand that. i have no qualms. my question was actually not why chris stevens didn t contact you, but why did jake vul van send chris stevens an e-mail to read and react to on the day after the facility was attacked, the same day he was denied for a question for security and instead of e-mail traffic about security, it s read and react to a blumenthal e-mail. well, i think any ambassador if one were sitting before the committee would say that they handled a lot of incoming
when our four fellow citizens were killed. that s on june 7th, 2012. also on june 7th of 2012, your deputy chief of staff is e-mailing ambassador stevens asking the ambassador to look at a memo sydney blumenthal sent you. in fact, mr. sullivan writes to the ambassador chris checking in with you on this report. any reactions? that s on exactly the same day that, i believe, our ambassador s papers were accepted in libya. it s a day after an i.e.d. attack on our compound and chris stevens is being asked to read and react to an e-mail by sydney blumenthal from your deputy chief of staff. this is after he s been turned
incident, would you like to elabora elaborate? well, thank you, congressman. i don t want anything that is said to me or about me to take away from the heroic efforts that the diplomatic security officers exhibited. the five men who were with chris and shawn smith risked thundershower lives repeatedly. and were themselves under grave threat. you wanted to point out that even when we try to get it right, which we do try, sometimes there are unintended consequenc consequences. there s an example out of this tragedy. coming out of previous assessments of attacks on facilities, we now have safe havens, safe rooms in facilities