WASHINGTON (CNN) -- White House Press Secretary Tony Snow made a rather startling comment during the White House daily briefing Friday, alleging someone in the Bush Administration "broke the law" with regard to the surfacing of the deputy national security advisor's emails in the Washington Post.

The emails, written by deputy national security advisor Elliot Abrams, express concern over part of the North Korea deal that could remove the country from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

"This was not a dissent against the proposal," Snow said. "As a matter of fact -- I've talked to Elliott about this, and I talked to him again this morning about it. And this has been spun up in the press as Elliott opposing a treaty. He hadn't even seen it, and he said as much. He said, 'look, I do the Middle East. This is not what I do -- this is not my area of expertise, but I think it's important to know.' And once that question was answered, he was satisfied."

When a reporter asked, "Well, why do his emails -- his inquiries, wind up in the newspaper, then?" Snow responded, "Because somebody broke the law."

But later in the briefing Snow seemed to backtrack from the comments, telling a reporter he would have to "get back to you," on whether in fact an official in the administration had broken the law.

But when the transcript of the press conference was released, an asterisk was placed next to Snow's comment referencing a passage at the end of that transcript that read "the Press Secretary was in error. This instance was not a violation of the law."