Pressure on the Obama administration to release more information about the Benghazi attack grew Thursday, as House Speaker John Boehner demanded officials turn over emails pertaining to the controversial “talking points” and another top Republican appealed for more whistle-blowers to come forward.

On the heels of a dramatic hearing where three whistle-blowers testified, Fox News has learned that former Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday, on the Hill for a meeting with House Republicans, also told lawmakers: “I think Hillary (Clinton) should be subpoenaed if necessary.”

The comments and developments signal that Republicans will continue to press for answers on the deadly Sept. 11 attack. Despite arguments from Democrats that the hearing was not nearly as shocking as Republicans made it out to be, GOP lawmakers said it raised troubling questions that need to be investigated.

“The truth shouldn’t be hidden from the American people behind a White House firewall,” Boehner said Thursday. “Four Americans lost their lives in this terrorist attack. Congress will continue to investigate this issue, using all of the resources at our disposal.”

Boehner specifically urged the Obama administration to make public a set of internal emails that some lawmakers had been able to review but not keep.

One of the emails apparently showed a top State Department official saying a group affiliated with Islamic terrorists was responsible for the strike. Separate emails, though, allegedly depict the White House and State Department pressing lower-level officials to remove references to terrorism in talking points about the attacks.

Based on those talking points, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice would go on five Sunday talk shows shortly after the attacks to claim they were triggered by protests over an anti-Islam film. Top officials would later claim the flawed assessment was based on the best intelligence at the time, but the testimony from whistle-blowers Wednesday indicated that those on the ground knew the attack was terrorism.

“The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya,” Greg Hicks, deputy chief of mission in Libya, testified Wednesday.

After the hearing, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said he will continue to seek whistle-blowers to “come forward.”

“Candidly, as quickly as possible, we simply want to have the whistleblowers that are still out there, in fact witnesses that are still out there to come forward, tell us their story. We will get it out and we will close up this investigation,” he told Fox News.

Issa, R-Calif., is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which held the hearing.

The wide-ranging and dramatic testimony Wednesday raised several fresh questions about the attack. Witnesses questioned why security had not been tightened in Benghazi in the months leading up to the assault and why U.S. military assets did not respond sooner that night, with one alleging a military team was not given permission to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi the next morning.

Further, they raised serious concerns about the administration’s initial decision to describe the attack as a protest gone awry despite evidence on the ground to the contrary.

In startling testimony, Hicks also claimed the State Department retaliated against him after he raised questions about that decision. He claimed that Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Elizabeth Jones delivered a “blistering critique” of his management style after he criticized Rice’s initial claim that the attack was tied to anger over an anti-Islam film. He also claimed that he was counseled to avoid personally discussing the attack with Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz and was “effectively demoted” to a desk officer in the end.

Issa, in a written statement after Wednesday’s hearing, called the alleged retaliation and intimidation “perhaps most troubling.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., top Democrat on the committee, vowed to protect the whistle-blowers while criticizing his Republican colleagues for allegedly trying to politicize the tragedy. He claimed afterward that the testimony only served to undercut Republican allegations.

“What should have been a bipartisan investigation involving our national security was another sorry example of Republicans promising explosive new facts but delivering only a press spectacle,” he said in a statement.

The committee may move to hear testimony next from at least one leader of the State Department’s internal review of the Benghazi attack. Though the leaders, former Joints Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, apparently declined to testify, Pickering told MSNBC on Wednesday that he is willing to speak.

Issa spokesman Frederick Hill on Thursday noted the “change of heart” — but also said neither Pickering nor the administration has contacted the committee about possible testimony.

Several claims from Wednesday’s hearing could open up new lines of inquiry on the attack and its aftermath. Among them, Hicks claimed that Rice’s faulty claims about the nature of the attack hurt the FBI investigation.

Hicks argued that Rice’s comments so insulted the Libyan president — since they contradicted his Sept. 16 claims that the attack was premeditated — that it slowed the FBI’s investigation.

“President Magariaf was insulted in front of his own people, in front of the world. His credibility was reduced,” Hicks said, adding that the president was apparently “still steamed” two weeks later.

This bad blood, he claimed, contributed to the FBI team being stuck in Tripoli for about 17-18 days.

“I definitely believe that it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi,” he said, adding that the U.S. could not even get the Libyans to secure the crime scene during that time.

Published May 09, 2013 / FoxNews.com

A key Benghazi whistle-blower, responding to Democratic claims that the prolonged scrutiny over the administration’s botched talking points is unwarranted, testified Wednesday that the early mischaracterization of the attack may have actually hurt the FBI’s investigation.

The claim was one of several new accounts given at Wednesday’s high-profile hearing where three whistle-blowers testified.

Democrats, while giving deference to the officials and their version of events, used the hearing to try and deflect criticism away from the administration. In particular, they rejected the notion that early talking points on the attack were deliberately changed, to downplay terrorism, for political reasons.

“People who have actually seen the documents, who have actually conducted a real investigation completely reject the allegation that they were made for political purposes,” Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., said.

But the substance of the claims Wednesday could serve to re-open questions about that deadly night — and specifically about the initial claim by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice that the attack was triggered by a protest over an anti-Islam film.

‘I definitely believe that it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi.’ – Greg Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya

Greg Hicks, the deputy chief of mission in Libya who became the top U.S. diplomat in the country after Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed, was asked to respond to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement at a prior hearing asking “what difference” do the questions over the talking points make.

Hicks argued that Rice’s comments so insulted the Libyan president — since they contradicted his Sept. 16 claims that the attack was premeditated — that it slowed the FBI’s investigation.

“President Magariaf was insulted in front of his own people, in front of the world. His credibility was reduced,” Hicks said, adding that the president was apparently “still steamed” two weeks later.

This bad blood, he claimed, contributed to the FBI team being stuck in Tripoli for about 17 days.

“I definitely believe that it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi,” he said, adding that the U.S. could not even get the Libyans to secure the crime scene during that time.

As for Rice’s comments that Sunday, when she repeatedly cited the video as the trigger for the attack, Hicks said his “jaw dropped” when he heard that.

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

He said Rice never talked to him before those appearances.

Hicks said the only information coming out of his team was that there was an “attack” on the consulate. “The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya,” he said.

He also claimed that, when he asked a superior about the interviews, he was told “he should not proceed” with his questions. He was later given a “blistering critique” of his management style and effectively demoted to “desk officer,” he claimed.

Hicks’ testimony marked some of the most detailed of any delivered Wednesday. He and others also suggested the State Department’s internal review into the attack was lacking. Hicks said when he was interviewed by the group, a stenographer was not present.

In hours of testimony, the witnesses recounted in great detail what happened in eastern Libya on Sept. 11 and how U.S. personnel came under a series of attacks that left four Americans dead. Though Democratic officials have argued the attack has been thoroughly investigated and that the hearing Wednesday was political in nature, the claims challenged several long-standing assertions by the Obama administration.

The witnesses criticized the lax security at the Benghazi site in the run-up to the attack, and suggested the military did not do all it good to respond to the scene that night despite claims to the contrary.

Hicks also revealed that it appeared some were trying to lure even more U.S. personnel into a separate “ambush” while the attack was still being carried out. He described how, as diplomatic officials were trying to find out what happened to Stevens, they were receiving phone calls from supposed tipsters saying they knew where the ambassador was and urging Americans to come get him.

“We suspected that we were being baited into a trap,” Hicks said, adding that he did not want to send anybody into what he suspected was an “ambush.”

Getting choked up, Hicks described how the Libyan prime minister later called him to tell him Stevens was in fact dead. “I think it’s the saddest phone call I’ve ever had in my life,” he said.

At the very beginning of the attack, before Stevens went missing and was later found dead, Hicks said his team believed it was terrorism. He said a regional security officer rushed into his villa yelling, “Greg, Greg, the consulate’s under attack.”

He then spoke by phone with Stevens who told him the same: “Greg, we’re under attack.”

After enduring a night of attacks on the U.S. consulate, Hicks said the team departed at dawn for the nearby annex — shortly after they arrived, “the mortars came.”

Another whistle-blower questioned Wednesday why more military assets were not deployed sooner during the Benghazi terror attack. Mark Thompson, a former Marine and official with the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, said he was rebuffed by the White House when he asked for a specialized team — known as a FEST team — to be deployed. This is a unit made of special operations personnel, diplomatic security, intelligence and other officers.

Suggesting that some were hesitant to deploy because they were unsure what was happening, “One definition of a crisis is you do not know what’s going to happen in two hours,” he said.

Further, Hicks explained how a separate team of special forces personnel were not given the authorization to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi. “They were furious,” he said.

Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the oversight committee holding the hearing, defended the witnesses, calling them “actual experts on what really happened before, during and after the Benghazi attacks,” who “deserve to be heard.”

The three witnesses were Hicks, Thompson and Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was formerly the regional security officer in Libya; and Thompson.

“I am a career public servant,” Hicks said. “Until the aftermath of Benghazi, I loved every day of my job.”

Nordstrom choked up as he began to testify Wednesday.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., top Democrat on the oversight committee, said Wednesday that Republicans are using the witnesses’ statements for “political purposes.” He said he’s glad the whistle-blowers are testifying and would ensure they are protected, but pre-emptively challenged some of their claims — including the claim that U.S. military could have responded sooner to the site of the attack.

The Obama administration has adamantly denied several of the latest charges, including a claim that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide tried to cut the department’s own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making on Sept. 11. The administration also denied that the whistle-blowers in question were intimidated — while behind the scenes questioning the credibility of the witnesses.

A “fact sheet” released by the department ahead of the hearing reiterated its denials. The statement said the department has “demonstrated an unprecedented degree of cooperation with the Congress” on Libya, and rejected claims that the military was in a position to help that night but was told to stand down. Citing its internal review, the statement noted the review “found no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders.”

 

 

Republican lawmakers hounding the Obama administration for months over unanswered questions on the Benghazi attack will have their moment, on Wednesday, to demonstrate whether the internal response amounted to a cover-up — as whistle-blowers give long-awaited testimony expected to challenge the White House’s version of events.Two of the whistle-blowers’ opening statements were obtained by Fox News, and in the statements they defend their credibility in testifying about what happened last Sept. 11 in Libya.”I am a career public servant,” Greg Hicks’ statement reads. “Until the aftermath of Benghazi, I loved every day of my job.” He was deputy chief of mission in Libya and became top U.S. diplomat in the country after Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in the terror attack.

The other statement, by Mark Thompson of the State Department Counterterrorism Bureau, is mostly biographical. Testimony also is due Wednesday from Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was formerly the regional security officer in Libya.

The administration has parried Republican allegations lately by arguing that the attack is old news, that the State Department already has investigated it and that Republicans are engaged in a political witch hunt.

But a series of carefully timed leaks on the whistle-blowers’ testimony indicates House Republicans could have the goods to at least merit a second look at the administration narrative.

“The question is, where’s the accountability for lying to the American people?” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Fox News. “The American people were lied to.”

Issa claimed one “cover-up” is “undeniable” — that the State Department botched security in Benghazi in the run-up to the attack. But, he said, “it still doesn’t explain the president misleading the American people over a period of weeks.”

Three whistle-blowers are set to testify shortly before noon to the oversight committee Issa chairs.

Issa’s Democratic counterpart on the committee, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, voiced skepticism about the leaks of the witnesses’ claims in advance of the hearing.

“If there was any matter that cries out for bipartisanship, it’s this,” he told Fox News, while raising criticisms that information about some witnesses wasn’t available in advance to Democrats. “This is about making sure that our diplomatic core are safe. … I want to go wherever the evidence leads, but I want all the evidence.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a member of that committee, said if it weren’t for lawmakers’ persistence, “we would be left with a whole host of lies coming out of this administration, because they were not truthful about this.”

The “truth” surrounding the Benghazi attack has been elusive. The Obama administration has adamantly denied several of the latest charges, including a claim that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide tried to cut the department’s own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making on Sept. 11. The administration also denied that the whistle-blowers in question were intimidated — while behind the scenes questioning the credibility of the witnesses.

The witnesses are expected to cover a breadth of material in their testimony Wednesday. Lawmakers have questioned to what extent security requests were ignored before the attack, whether the military could have done more to respond the night of the attack and whether talking points were intentionally changed for political reasons after the attack to downplay terrorism. The witnesses could address all three areas on Wednesday.

A key area of interest is how the attack was described in the immediate aftermath.

The Weekly Standard reported last week that the initial CIA talking points on the attack said “Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack.” The reference to Al Qaeda was later taken out, and the initial reference to “attacks” was reportedly changed to “demonstrations.”

According to The Weekly Standard, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland raised “serious concerns” at the time about the draft, concerned it could fuel criticism of the department.

The language continued to be watered down.

Issa told Fox News, in reference to the revisions, that “it’s very clear … that this was a political change.”

State Department officials released a statement Tuesday night labeled “Benghazi Attack Fack Check” to defend its security efforts.

“No one is more determined than the State Department family to bring those who perpetrated this attack to justice and do everything we need to do to keep our people safe,” the statement reads. “That’s where our attention is, and we hope Congress and the media, too, can keep the focus.”

Hicks, according to a transcript, also told congressional investigators that he thought it “was a terrorist attack from the get go.”

The whistle-blowers will be able to provide a new perspective on what was happening on the ground that night.

Hicks, according to transcripts, told investigators that the U.S. military could have prevented one wave of the deadly attack on American personnel in Benghazi if fighter jets had been promptly deployed. Further, he claimed that a second rescue team that was supposed to go from Tripoli to Benghazi early the next morning was told not to go.

He said Special Forces personnel were planning to board a C-130 flight at around 6 a.m. local time on Sept. 12 but got a phone call when they were on their way to the flight telling them “you can’t go now, you don’t have authority to go now. And so they missed the flight.”

He added: “They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it,” apparently because they did not have the “right authority.”

Thompson has also claimed that Clinton and a key aide effectively tried to cut the department’s own counterterrorism bureau out of the loop that night.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney denied the claim on Monday.

Daniel Benjamin, who ran the department’s Counterterrorism Bureau at the time, also put out a statement Monday morning strongly denying the charges.

“I ran the bureau then, and I can say now with certainty, as the former Coordinator for Counterterrorism, that this charge is simply untrue,” he said. “Though I was out of the country on official travel at the time of the attack, I was in frequent contact with the Department. At no time did I feel that the Bureau was in any way being left out of deliberations that it should have been part of.”

Published May 08, 2013 / FoxNews.com

The U.S. military could have prevented one wave of the deadly attack on American personnel in Benghazi if fighter jets had been promptly deployed, a top diplomatic official who was in Benghazi during the Sept. 11 assault told congressional investigators.

The account, contained in a transcript obtained by Fox News, was given by Gregory Hicks during an interview last month with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Hicks, a whistle-blower who is preparing to testify Wednesday before that committee, was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya — after Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed that night, he became the highest-ranking diplomat on the ground.

Hicks, in his interview, argued that after the first wave of attacks on the U.S. consulate, the U.S. military could have prevented additional violence with a quickly scrambled flight — after the first wave, terrorists would go on to launch a pre-dawn mortar assault on the CIA annex.

“And so, in my personal opinion, a fast-mover flying over Benghazi at some point, you know, as soon as possible might very well have prevented some of the bad things that happened that night,” Hicks said, according to the transcript.

He acknowledged that this would have required clearance from the Libyan government, since it is their airspace, but claimed the government would have approved such a flight.

This, he said, could have stopped that mortar assault.

“I believe if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split,” he said. “They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them.”

Hicks suggested the Libyan government expected a request to use their airspace, and claimed the Libyans “were as surprised as we were” that U.S. military personnel did not arrive until later on.

Pentagon officials have said military assets were not in position to respond fast enough that night, and also have cautioned about the potential risks of sending additional military into the area.

“There was not enough time given the speed of the attack for armed military assets to respond,” former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February. “We were not dealing with a prolonged or continuous assault which could have been brought to an end by a U.S. military response. … Time, distance, the lack of an adequate warning, events that moved very quickly on the ground prevented a more immediate response.”

Panetta, during an Oct. 25 briefing with reporters, also said that while the military was prepared to respond, the “basic principle is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.” He said the attack was over before “we had the opportunity to really know what was happening.”

Hicks acknowledged there were concerns that the nearest fighter jets did not have the requisite tankers in the area to support a flight.

However, he said a second rescue team that was supposed to go from Tripoli to Benghazi early that morning was told not to go.

He said Special Forces personnel were planning to board a C-130 flight at around 6 a.m. local time on Sept. 12.

“We fully intended for those guys to go, because we had already essentially stripped ourselves of our security presence, or our security capability to the bare minimum,” he said.

But he said the military team on the ground in Tripoli got a phone call when they were on their way to the flight telling them “you can’t go now, you don’t have authority to go now. And so they missed the flight.”

He added: “They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it,” apparently because they did not have the “right authority.”

The account is one of a series of new details and claims that are emerging about the night of the Benghazi attack in advance of congressional testimony.

Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for operations in the agency’s counterterrorism bureau, has also claimed that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide effectively tried to cut the department’s own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making that night. He, too, is set to testify Wednesday.

Sources close to the congressional investigation who have been briefed on what Thompson will say tell Fox News the veteran counterterrorism official concluded on Sept. 11 that Clinton and Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy tried to cut the counterterrorism bureau out of the loop as they and other Obama administration officials weighed how to respond to — and characterize — the Benghazi attacks.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney denied the claim on Monday.

Daniel Benjamin, who ran the department’s Counterterrorism Bureau at the time, also put out a statement Monday morning strongly denying the charges.

“I ran the bureau then, and I can say now with certainty, as the former Coordinator for Counterterrorism, that this charge is simply untrue,” he said. “Though I was out of the country on official travel at the time of the attack, I was in frequent contact with the Department. At no time did I feel that the Bureau was in any way being left out of deliberations that it should have been part of.”

He went on to call his bureau a “central participant in the interagency discussion about the longer-term response to Benghazi.” He said “at no time was the Bureau sidelined or otherwise kept from carrying out its tasks.”

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell also said Monday that the new hearings appear to be political in nature.

Separately, a senior State Department official told Fox News that Hicks and Thompson both have “axes to grind.”

On the night of Sept. 11, as the Obama administration scrambled to respond to the Benghazi terror attacks, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide effectively tried to cut the department’s own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making, according to a “whistle-blower” witness from that bureau who will soon testify to the charge before Congress, Fox News has learned.

That witness is Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for operations in the agency’s counterterrorism bureau. Sources tell Fox News Thompson will level the allegation against Clinton during testimony on Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Fox News has also learned that another official from the counterterrorism bureau — independently of Thompson — voiced the same complaint about Clinton and Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy to trusted national security colleagues back in October.

Extremists linked to Al Qaeda stormed the U.S. Consulate and a nearby annex on Sept. 11, in a heavily armed and well-coordinated eight-hour assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans.

Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account was suppressed by the official investigative panel that Clinton convened to review the episode, the Accountability Review Board (ARB). Thompson’s lawyer, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State, in advance of his cooperation with Congress.

Sources close to the congressional investigation who have been briefed on what Thompson will testify tell Fox News the veteran counterterrorism official concluded on Sept. 11 that Clinton and Kennedy tried to cut the counterterrorism bureau out of the loop as they and other Obama administration officials weighed how to respond to — and characterize — the Benghazi attacks.

“You should have seen what (Clinton) tried to do to us that night,” the second official in State’s counterterrorism bureau told colleagues back in October.  Those comments would appear to be corroborated by Thompson’s forthcoming testimony.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the counterterrorism officials’ allegation “100 percent false.” A spokesman for Clinton said tersely that the charge is not true.

Thompson’s attorney, diGenova, would not comment for this article.

Documents from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, first published in the May 13 edition of “The Weekly Standard,” showed that senior officials from those agencies decided within days of the attacks to delete all references to Al Qaeda’s known involvement in them from “talking points” being prepared for those administration officers being sent out to discuss the attacks publicly.

Those talking points — and indeed, the statements of all senior Obama administration officials who commented publicly on Benghazi during the early days after the attacks — sought instead to depict the Americans’ deaths as the result of a spontaneous protest that went awry. The administration later acknowledged that there had been no such protest, as evidence mounted that Al Qaeda-linked terrorists had participated in the attacks. The latter conclusion had figured prominently in the earliest CIA drafts of the talking points, but was stricken by an ad hoc group of senior officials controlling the drafting process. Among those involved in prodding the deletions, the documents published by “The Weekly Standard” show, was State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, who wrote at one point that the revisions were not sufficient to satisfy “my building’s leadership.”

The allegations of the two counterterrorism officials stand to return the former secretary of state to the center of the Benghazi story. Widely regarded as a leading potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, Clinton has insisted she was not privy to decisions made by underlings about the inadequate security for the U.S. installations in Benghazi that were made in the run-up to the attacks. And she has portrayed her role — once the attacks became known in Washington — as that of a determined fact-finder who worked with colleagues to fashion the best possible response to the crisis.

Clinton testified about Benghazi for the first and only time in January of this year, shortly before leaving office. She had long delayed her testimony, at first because she cited the need for the ARB to complete its report, and then because she suffered a series of untimely health problems that included a stomach virus, a concussion sustained during a fall at home, and a blood clot near her brain, from which she has since recovered. However, Clinton was never interviewed by the ARB she convened.

Fox News disclosed last week that the conduct of the ARB is itself now under review by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General. A department spokesman said the OIG probe is examining all prior ARBs, not just the one established after Benghazi.

The counterterrorism officials, however, concluded that Clinton and Kennedy were immediately wary of the attacks being portrayed as acts of terrorism, and accordingly worked to prevent the counterterrorism bureau from having a role in the department’s early decision-making relating to them.

Also appearing before the oversight committee on Wednesday will be Gregory N. Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks. Like Thompson, Hicks is a career State Department official who considers himself a Benghazi whistle-blower. His attorney, Victoria Toensing, a former chief counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, has charged that Hicks, too, has faced threats of reprisal from unnamed superiors at State. (Toensing and diGenova, who are representing their respective clients pro bono, are married.)

Portions of the forthcoming testimony of Hicks — who was one of the last people to speak to Stevens, and who upon the ambassador’s death became the senior U.S. diplomat in Libya — were made public by Rep. Issa during an appearance on the CBS News program “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Hicks told the committee that he and his colleagues on the ground in Libya that night knew instantly that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and that he was astonished that no one drafting the administration’s talking points consulted with him before finalizing them, or before U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice delivered them on the Sunday talk shows of Sept. 16.

On the night of Sept. 11, as the Obama administration scrambled to respond to the Benghazi terror attacks, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide effectively tried to cut the department’s own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making, according to a “whistle-blower” witness from that bureau who will soon testify to the charge before Congress, Fox News has learned.

That witness is Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for operations in the agency’s counterterrorism bureau. Sources tell Fox News Thompson will level the allegation against Clinton during testimony on Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Fox News has also learned that another official from the counterterrorism bureau — independently of Thompson — voiced the same complaint about Clinton and Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy to trusted national security colleagues back in October.

Extremists linked to Al Qaeda stormed the American consulate and a nearby annex on Sept. 11, in a heavily armed and well-coordinated eight-hour assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans.

Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account was suppressed by the official investigative panel that Clinton convened to review the episode, the Accountability Review Board (ARB). Thompson’s lawyer, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State, in advance of his cooperation with Congress.

Sources close to the congressional investigation who have been briefed on what Thompson will testify tell Fox News the veteran counterterrorism official concluded on Sept. 11 that Clinton and Kennedy tried to cut the counterterrorism bureau out of the loop as they and other Obama administration officials weighed how to respond to — and characterize — the Benghazi attacks.

“You should have seen what (Clinton) tried to do to us that night,” the second official in State’s counterterrorism bureau told colleagues back in October.  Those comments would appear to be corroborated by Thompson’s forthcoming testimony.

Neither Clinton, contacted through the Clinton Global Initiative, nor Kennedy, contacted through a State Department spokesman, returned requests for comment.

Thompson’s attorney, diGenova, would not comment for this article.

Documents from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, first published in the May 13 edition of “The Weekly Standard,” showed that senior officials from those agencies decided within days of the attacks to delete all references to Al Qaeda’s known involvement in them from “talking points” being prepared for those administration officers being sent out to discuss the attacks publicly.

Those talking points — and indeed, the statements of all senior Obama administration officials who commented publicly on Benghazi during the early days after the attacks — sought instead to depict the Americans’ deaths as the result of a spontaneous protest that went awry. The administration later acknowledged that there had been no such protest, as evidence mounted that Al Qaeda-linked terrorists had participated in the attacks. The latter conclusion had figured prominently in the earliest CIA drafts of the talking points, but was stricken by an ad hoc group of senior officials controlling the drafting process. Among those involved in prodding the deletions, the documents published by “The Weekly Standard” show, was State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, who wrote at one point that the revisions were not sufficient to satisfy “my building’s leadership.”

The allegations of the two counterterrorism officials stand to return the former secretary of state to the center of the Benghazi story. Widely regarded as a leading potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, Clinton has insisted she was not privy to decisions made by underlings about the inadequate security for the U.S. installations in Benghazi that were made in the run-up to the attacks. And she has portrayed her role — once the attacks became known in Washington — as that of a determined fact-finder who worked with colleagues to fashion the best possible response to the crisis.

Clinton testified about Benghazi for the first and only time in January of this year, shortly before leaving office. She had long delayed her testimony, at first because she cited the need for the ARB to complete its report, and then because she suffered a series of untimely health problems that included a stomach virus, a concussion sustained during a fall at home, and a blood clot near her brain, from which she has since recovered. However, Clinton was never interviewed by the ARB she convened.

Fox News disclosed last week that the conduct of the ARB is itself now under review by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General. A department spokesman said the OIG probe is examining all prior ARBs, not just the one established after Benghazi.

The counterterrorism officials, however, concluded that Clinton and Kennedy were immediately wary of the attacks being portrayed as acts of terrorism, and accordingly worked to prevent the counterterrorism bureau from having a role in the department’s early decision-making relating to them.

Also appearing before the oversight committee on Wednesday will be Gregory N. Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks. Like Thompson, Hicks is a career State Department official who considers himself a Benghazi whistle-blower. His attorney, Victoria Toensing, a former chief counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, has charged that Hicks, too, has faced threats of reprisal from unnamed superiors at State. (Toensing and diGenova, who are representing their respective clients pro bono, are married.)

Portions of the forthcoming testimony of Hicks — who was one of the last people to speak to Stevens, and who upon the ambassador’s death became the senior U.S. diplomat in Libya — were made public by Rep. Issa during an appearance on the CBS News program “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

Hicks told the committee that he and his colleagues on the ground in Libya that night knew instantly that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and that he was astonished that no one drafting the administration’s talking points consulted with him before finalizing them, or before U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice delivered them on the Sunday talk shows of Sept. 16.

Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz suggested Sunday that potential witnesses to the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks are being intimidated by the State Department but they will come forward after so-called “whistle-blowers” testify this week before Congress.

“I think these people are afraid of retaliation, afraid of what the State Department will do to them,” Chaffetz, a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told “Fox News Sunday.”

Chaffetz’s remarks came one day after the committee announced three witnesses for its hearing Wednesday on the Sept. 11, 2012, fatal attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

The witnesses are three career State Department officials: Gregory Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the attacks; Mark 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.

“Others are out there and will testify,” Chaffetz said. He also suggested Thompson has been “suppressed” but did not say how.

President Obama and the State Department have denied knowledge of such actions.

“I’m not familiar with this notion that anybody has been blocked,” the president said last week.

Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Steve Lynch told Fox on Sunday that independent investigators interviewed more than 100 witnesses and determined “no breach of duty” during the attacks in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

Lynch, also a member of the House oversight committee, defended House Democrats on the issue, saying the Republican-led chamber calls the hearings and picks witnesses.

“We don’t have the ability to hold a hearing,” he said.

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.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

Hicks was at the time of the highest-ranking American diplomat in the country.

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.

Three new suspects have been charged in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing, two for conspiring to get rid of their friend’s incriminating backpack filled with gutted fireworks after learning he was a suspect in the April 15 terror attack, and another for lying to investigators, according to an FBI affidavit released Wednesday.

Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakova both 19-year-old natives of Kazakhstan and friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at UMass-Dartmouth, allegedly went to Tsarnaev’s dorm and took a laptop, the backpack and some Vaseline that may have been used in making the deadly pressure cooker bombs that killed three and injured more than 200 at the race. Police believe the bombs were packed with shrapnel and gunpowder removed from fireworks.

Robel Phillipos, of Cambridge, Mass., also 19, was charged with willfully making materially false statements to federal law enforcement officials during a terrorism investigation.

The affidavit filed in support of a complaint said Kadyrbayev was the one who carried out the disposal of the backpack after the three saw the fireworks that had been hollowed out and emptied of gunpowder.

“Kadyrbayev knew when he saw the empty fireworks that Tsarnaev was involved in the marathon bombing,” the affidavit reads. “Kadyrbayev decided to remove the backpack from the room in order to help his friend Tsarnaev avoid trouble.”

The three acted on April 18, three days after the bombing and hours after investigators aired surveillance footage identifying Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan as the suspects in the bombing, though not by name, according to authorities. Phillipos first saw footage depicting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the news Thursday, and told Kadyrbayev over the phone that he suspected their friend was the bomber. When Kadyrbayev later texted Tsarnaev and said he bore a resemblance to the subject of an intense manhunt, Tsarnaev allegedly sent back a chilling response: “Lol, You better not text me.” He also texted Kadyrbayev to say, “Come to my room and take whatever you want,” according to the affidavit.

The exchange came just before 9 p.m. on April 18, a few hours before the Tsarnaev brothers would carjack a Chinese immigrant, murder an MIT police officer and engage in a wild shootout with police through the streets of Cambridge and Watertown, police say. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died April 19, after a shootout hours after authorities showed the brothers on surveillance video and named them as suspects.

Although the three new suspects initially appear to have stonewalled authorities, Phillipos came clean in a fourth interview, conducted April 26. He confessed that the three took the backpack out of their friend’s dorm room, according to the affidavit. Phillipos allegedly told investigators that the two others “started to freak out” after seeing Tsarnaev identified on television.

Prior to the latest development, authorities had named only the brothers as suspects in the bombing at the finish line of the world-famous race.

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov face maximum sentences of five years in prison and fines of $250,000. Phillipos, a U.S. citizen, faces a maximum sentence of eight years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Kadyrbayev’s attorney, Robert Stahl, says his client will be transported to the federal courthouse later Wednesday to appear on new criminal charges. On Friday, Yerlan Kubashev with the Consulate General for Kazakhstan in New York confirmed in a statement to Fox News that the consulate is helping the young men with legal representation. Both Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov will plea not guilty, according to their attorneys.

Kubashev said the two men are “shocked at the bombings,” and “they express sorrow to the bombing victims and their families.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is in a prison hospital after being wounded in the shootout with police as he and his brother made their getaway attempt. He is charged with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, a crime that carries a potential death sentence.

Authorities have searched the Rhode Island home of the parents of Katherine Russell, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow.