” Their identities have been a well-guarded secret, known only to their high-powered lawyers and a handful of House lawmakers and staff. But now Fox News has learned the names of the self-described Benghazi “whistleblowers” who are set to testify before a widely anticipated congressional hearing on Wednesday.
Gregory N. Hicks
” Their identities have been a well-guarded secret, known only to their high-powered lawyers and a handful of House lawmakers and staff. But now Fox News has learned the names of the self-described Benghazi “whistleblowers” who are set to testify before a widely anticipated congressional hearing on Wednesday.
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.”
Eric Nordstrom
” Mark Thompson is the Deputy Coordinator for Operations in the Bureau of Counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of State. He joined the State Department as a U.S. Marine in 1996, transitioned to the Civil Service in 1998, and assumed this position in 2006.
In this position, Mr. Thompson advises senior leadership on operational counterterrorism matters, and ensures that the United States can rapidly respond to global terrorism crises. Specifically, Ops coordinates policy and operational proposals; plans for crisis response during significant international events; collaborates with USG and international partners to develop technologies for countering terrorism; develops and conducts overseas counterterrorism exercises; and leads the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST).
The FEST is the U.S. Government’s only interagency, on-call team poised to rapidly respond to terrorist incidents worldwide. The FEST assists and advises the U.S. Ambassador in assessing the situation and coordinating USG crisis response activities. Mr. Thompson has led numerous FEST deployments in support of U.S. Ambassadors, including deployments to Latin America (2001), Southeast Asia (2002), and Africa (2006). Previously, he deployed as a FEST Operations Officer in response to the 1998 East Africa U.S. Embassy bombings and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen.
Mr. Thompson leads Department of State participation in counterterrorism training events. Every year Ops works with both its U.S. government and international partners to plan and conduct numerous counterterrorism crisis response exercises around the world. For example, Ops leads the planning efforts to conduct exercises that prepare the USG for major international events such as the Olympics and Pan American Games.
From 1978 to 1998 Mr. Thompson served in multiple positions as an infantry officer in all four U.S. Marine Divisions, and with embarked amphibious forces. Upon his retirement from the U.S. Marine Corps, he assumed a civil service position in the (then) Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism. In 2004 and 2005, he served with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq, where he coordinated interagency responses to hostage takings. Mr. Thompson was promoted to the Senior Executive Service in 2008. “
No picture found . Neither Hicks nor Nordstrom appear in the State Dept biography listings here or here .
Under “ Chiefs of Mission Listed by Country or Organization ” there is no listing for Libya at all and the website doesn’t offer any information on Deputy Chiefs.
” Joe diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, and wife Victoria Toensing, a former chief counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee — Republicans — disclosed this week that in their private practice in the nation’s capital, they now represent pro bono two career State Department employees who regard themselves as “whistleblowers” and would be testifying before Issa’s committee at its next Benghazi hearing, on May 8.
The lawyers said their clients believe their accounts of Benghazi were spurned by the Accountability Review board (ARB), the official investigative body convened by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to review the terrorist attacks, and that the two employees have faced threats and intimidation from as-yet-unnamed superiors.
“The people that we are representing are career civil servants…people who have served the country overseas…in dangerous positions all over the world, have risked their lives and only want to tell the truth.”
It isn’t clear to us here whether the two “career civil servants” that diGenova and Toensing are representing are two of the three mentioned above or two entirely different witnesses and what of the other thirty-odd people who were actually in Benghazi that night and lived to tell not tell of it ?
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