The White House on Wednesday released 100 pages of emails and documents in its latest effort to defuse controversy over its handling of last year's killing of Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

Republicans criticized the Obama administration for covering up details of the assault, which took place on Sept. 11 and killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

The emails were the basis for the controversial "talking points" memos that Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, used during her appearance on major TV networks to argue that the Benghazi attack was not an act of terror, but rather one arising from a spontaneous protest over an American-made film.

According to Republicans, Rice was trying to be misleading in the run-up to the presidential election in Nov.

According to the emails, references to al-Qaeda, Islamist extremists based in Libya and prior terrorist attacks around Benghazi were removed from the talking points.

Officials have defended the administration's handling of the attack, and President Barack Obama himself on Monday dismissed his rivals' attack over the talking points as a politically-driven " sideshow".

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