WASHINGTON – A top State Department security official in Libya told a congressional investigator that he had argued unsuccessfully for more security in the weeks before Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed. Department officials instead wanted to “normalize operations and reduce security resources,” he wrote in an email obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Eric Nordstrom, who was the regional security officer in Libya, also referenced a State Department document that detailed 230 security incidents in Libya between June 2011 and July 2012 that demonstrated the danger there to Americans.

Stevens, a State Department computer specialist and two former Navy SEALs were killed at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. U.S. officials initially described the attack as a spontaneous protest over an anti-Muslim Internet video, but later called it terrorist act.