The former Regional Security Officer in Tripoli during the months before the Benghazi terror attack that killed the U.S. ambassador told a congressional panel on Wednesday that the State Department's internal review of the diplomatic disaster unfairly let senior political appointees off the hook.

Choking back tears, Eric Allan Nordstrom said the investigation into the terror attack, continued Wednesday during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, 'matters to me personally, and it matters to my colleagues at the department of state.'

'It matters to the American public for whom we serve, and most importantly, it matters to the friends and family of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, who were murdered on September 11, 2012.'

Nordstrom is a Supervisory Special Agent with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and served as the principal security adviser to U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, who perished along with the three other Americans in the terror attack.

His comments in prepared testimony concerned a State Department Accountability Review Board (ARB) report on Benghazi, which did not recommend any sanctions on any department employees, and concluded that no one above middle management made mistakes.

'It is not what is contained within the report that I take exception to but what is left unexamined,' Nordstrom's prepared testimony said.

'Specifically, I’m concerned with the ARB’s decision to focus its attention at the Assistant Secretary level and below, where the ARB felt that 'the decision-making in fact takes place".'

But 'based on my personal knowledge of the situation in Libya prior to the attack,' Nordstrom wrote, 'I received and reviewed several documents, which included planning documents for operations in both Tripoli and Benghazi, drafted and approved at the Under Secretary of Management level or above.'

The State Department's website includes an organizational chart showing that those 'above' the agency's six under secretaries include only two deputy secretaries and the secretary of state - all political appointees.

The chart, however, shows a direct line of reporting from the secretary - Hillary Clinton at the time of the Benghazi attack - and all the under secretaries.

The hearing included testimony from three whistle-blowers, including Nordstrom and one first-hand witness of the events in Benghazi.

In the aftermath of the attack, the Obama administration stuck to its initial line that a spontaneous protest over an American anti-Islam video turned ugly, and denied that a terror attack was responsible.

Coming only weeks before the 2012 presidential election, the attack might otherwise have provided GOP challenger Mitt Romney's campaign with an opening to argue that the president wasn't effectively managing terrorist threats abroad.

Hillary Clinton testified in a Senate hearing in January, now-famously asking if it mattered whether the attack stemmed from a street demonstration, or from a preplanned terrorist assault.

'With all due respect,' she said in response to Republican Senator Ron Johnson's questions, 'the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?'

'It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.'

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