The White House today pushed back against stories that detailed how emails were sent just two hours after the September 11 attacks in Libya detailing a claim of responsiblity by a terrorist group with links to Al Qaeda.

"There were emails about all sorts of information that was becoming available in the aftermath of the attack," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney in a response to a question from reporters aboard Air Force One.

Here is the exchange from Wednesday morning:

Q    Jay, there are some emails that have emerged, which suggest that the White House and other areas of the government were told within hours of the Benghazi attack that an extremist group had claimed responsibility.  How is that compatible with the idea that it was a spontaneous attack?

CARNEY:  There were emails about all sorts of information that was becoming available in the aftermath of the attack.  The email you’re referring to was an open-source, unclassified email referring to an assertion made on a social media site that everyone in this room had access to and knew about instantaneously.

There was a variety of information coming in.  The whole point of an intelligence community and what they do is to assess strands of information and make judgments about what happened and who was responsible.  And I would refer you to what we’ve already said about, and what the DNI has already said about, the initial assessments of the intelligence community, and the fact that throughout this process, I and others made very clear that our preliminary assessments were preliminary, that an investigation was underway, and that as more facts became available, we would make the American people aware of them.  

Again, this was an open-source, unclassified email about a posting on a Facebook site.  I would also note I think that within a few hours, that organization itself claimed that it had not been responsible.  Neither should be taken as fact -- that’s why there’s an investigation underway.