WH Downplays Kerry Remark that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was Radicalized in Russia

From the Washington Times:

The Obama administration on Wednesday sought to downplay remarks by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who had asserted early in the day that Tamerlan Tsarnaev — the older of the two brothers believed to have carried out the Boston Marathon bombings — must have drawn inspiration for the attack during a trip he made to Chechnya.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said comments made by Mr. Kerry don’t reflect any new information gleaned by authorities probing for meaning in the Checnhya trip made last year by Mr. Tsarnaev, who was killed by police near Boston on Friday.

“In a situation like this, we ought to let the investigators do their work and not jump to conclusions, as the president said on Friday,” Mr. Carney said when asked during a briefing with reporters whether the secretary of state was following administration advisories to be careful in assessing the bombers’ motivations until intelligence officials conclude their investigation.

Mr. Kerry weighed in on the emerging narrative behind the Boston Marathon bombers during a visit Wednesday to Brussels, where he told reporters, “We just had a young person who went to Russia, Chechnya, who blew people up in Boston.”

“He didn’t say where he went, but he learned something where he went, and he came back with a willingness to kill people,” Mr. Kerry said.

Kerry