We’re reviewing notes from the Benghazi Hearings but wanted to put the initial media take together for review:  This is the Greg Hicks portion – including his statement for the record recounting his experience on the day/night of Sept 11th 2012

WASHINGTON DC – Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Benghazi, told Congress today that a State Department official began criticizing his job performance, and he was ultimately demoted, after he asked why U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice attributed the Benghazi attack to an anti-Islamic Youtube video.  (link)

WASHINGTON DC –  In the GOP’s most successful effort of the day to tie Hillary Clinton to the controversy, witness Gregory Hicks said he got an angry phone call from a top Clinton aide after a State Department lawyer was excluded from a briefing with a member of Congress.

Gregory Hicks said that he got a rare phone call from Cheryl Mills, a longtime Clinton lawyer who served as Hillary Clinton’s top counsel and chief of staff at the State Department, who was angry about the lawyer not being allowed to participate in a briefing with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).

Hicks said the lawyer didn’t have the proper security clearance.

Hicks also said the State Department told him not to submit to an interview with the congressional delegation — the first time he had ever received such a command. (LINK)

Washington DC – 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, revealed new details as he and other whistle-blowers delivered emotional testimony on Capitol Hill.

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. (link)

WASHINGTON DC – Gregory Hicks, the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya and the highest-ranking U.S. official in Libya after the Sept. 11th attack on the consulate, said Special Forces were told they were not authorized to board a flight to Benghazi.  (LINK)

The Washington Post sent out this tweet at the beginning of the hearings.   Essentially outlining their biased position: