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 and, upon the killing of Ambassador Stevens in those attacks, the highest-ranking American diplomat in the country; Mark I. Thompson, a former U.S. Marine and presently the Deputy Coordinator for Operations in the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, a Diplomatic Security officer who was formerly the regional security officer (RSO) in Libya, the top security officer in the country, in the months leading up to the Benghazi attacks.

Nordstrom previously testified before the oversight committee, which is chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), in October 2012. At that time, Nordstrom made headlines by detailing for lawmakers the series of requests that he, Ambassador Stevens, and others made for enhanced security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, most of which were rejected by superiors at Foggy Bottom. “For me,” Nordstrom testified he remarked, angry over inadequate staffing at a time when the threat environment in Benghazi was deteriorating, “the Taliban is on the inside of the [State Department] building.”