President Bush can’t remember whether he spied on former Prime Minister Tony Blair, according to White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.
Perino made the remarks at a Tuesday news conference when asked about an Army linguist who says he read an intelligence file about Blair’s private life.
The United States and Great Britain have a long-standing deal not to spy on each other’s leaders.
Read the exchange between Perino and a reporter below.
Q A former NSA linguist is saying that the U.S. spied on Tony Blair. Do you have anything on that?
MS. PERINO: I don’t have anything on that. No, I would not comment. And I saw reports about that. President Bush doesn’t recall anything of that sort. So that’s all I’d have to say on it.
Q You asked him about it, and he doesn’t recall anything of that sort —
MS. PERINO: This story has been out there for a while. It’s been circulating around. I don’t know why all of a sudden everybody is writing about it, because — maybe they read it on a blog or something. I don’t know.
Is that it? Oh, sorry.