More developments on FEST, head of FEST to give statement in connection with insufficient ARB investigation:
One of those officials, Mark Thompson, the State Department’s acting deputy assistant secretary of state for counterterrorism, offered to share his experience from that evening with the ARB, but was never contacted for an interview.
Thompson was one of a handful of State Department officials who had a firsthand view of what was happening in Libya that night. When he learned that Ambassador Chris Stevens was missing and that others had sought safe haven, Thompson testified, he told his leadership at the State Department “that we needed to go forward and consider the deployment of the Foreign Emergency Support Team.”
“I notified the White House,” Thompson continued. “They indicated that meetings had already taken place that evening” and that FEST would not be deployed.