WASHINGTON—The White House is releasing 100 pages of e-mails and notes related to the Obama administration's response to the attack on a diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, last September.

The White House had until now declined to make the documents public and had let congressional investigators review the documents without making copies.

The documents describe how the administration developed "talking points" to describe what the administration wanted to discuss publicly immediately after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.