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Former Benghazi Deputy Chief Slams Clinton for Delegating Out Her Duties

September 14, 2016

The former deputy chief of mission in Libya, Gregory Hicks, slammed Hillary Clinton on Wednesday for delegating out duties that were reserved for the secretary of state during the 2012 terror attack on the American consulate in Benghazi.

Hicks appeared on Fox News days after the four-year anniversary of the attack, during which Hicks was the second highest ranking American diplomat in Libya.

Host Martha MacCallum asked Hicks what went through his mind after playing a clip of Clinton speaking at NBC’s "Commander in Chief" forum last week saying that no American lives were lost in Libya.

"Well, as you might imagine, the flames of the burning consulate erupt in my mind, and also, I vividly remember seeing my four fallen comrades on the hospital beds in Tripoli afterwards," Hicks said. "This is a very emotional reaction I have. I’m sorry about that."

MacCallum asked Hicks for his take on when people, mostly Democrats, criticize the investigations into the attack on Benghazi and say they are political attacks against Clinton.

"I would say to them, Mrs. Clinton sent our people in Benghazi into harm’s way and she then delegated her responsibility, her legal obligation to protect our overseas Americans to others, and those people then reduced our security compliment in Tripoli from 34 to six," Hicks said. "So that when [Ambassador] Chris Stevens went to Benghazi, he could only take two security agents with him instead of the dozen or more that he should have had with him."

"I also tell them that she delegated the decision to to divide our people in Benghazi into two separate facilities," Hicks said. "The law says that decision can’t be delegated and so we have the very vivid stand-down controversy that was portrayed in the 13 Hours movie."

Hicks was also asked by MacCallum for his opinion of the investigations into the attack. Hicks did not hold back in his criticism of Democrats and the State Department stonewalling the investigation by the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

"Well, the disappearance of American history that is taking place is a very serious breach of trust of the American people and of America’s democracy and it’s shameful," Hicks said. "Now I think that Congressman [Trey] Gowdy and the Benghazi Committee has done as good a job as they could given the amount of information that was made available to them, but they didn’t receive all of the information that was available. When I testified before the committee in April, that was readily apparent."

"The majority confirmed in the course of my discussions that deliberative documents that they had requested from the State Department were not provided to them, yet, when the minority questioned me, they presented to me deliberative documents as part of their inquiry," Hicks said. "So what’s the story there?"