American Special Forces soldiers were preparing to board the C-130 that would fly them on a mission to rescue Americans under attack by terrorists in Benghazi on Sept. 11 last year, but they were stopped by a last-minute order from somebody higher up in the U.S. government, House investigators have learned.

“So Lieutenant Colonel Gibson, who is the SOCAFRICA commander, his team, you know, they were on their way to the vehicles to go to the airport to get on the C‑130 when he got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, you can’t go now, you don’t have authority to go now,” Gregory Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during an interview last month, The Washington Examiner has learned.