ABC's Jon Karl:
As today’s big Benghazi hearing gets underway, Republicans are saying Ambassador Thomas Pickering – the co-chairman of the State Department’s committee investigating of the Benghazi attack – has refused to testify today.
The State Department says the opposite is true – that Pickering wanted to testify but Republicans would not let him.
“Ambassador Pickering volunteered to appear,” a State Department official tells ABC News. “But [Government Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Darrell] Issa said no.”
“That is 100 percent untrue,” says Issa spokesman Frederick Hill.
Apparently, Pickering declined an earlier invitation to testify at a March hearing, but according to the State Department, wanted to appear in today's hearing. Asked by ABC about Pickering's offer, Hill said he could not testify:
“If Ambassador Pickering has reversed himself and wants to testify, we would welcome him at a future date,” Hill said.
How about today?
Hill said it is too late.
In other words, that thing Hill said was "100 percent untrue" ... was in fact 100 percent accurate.