White House: Bush ‘Doesn’t Recall’ Spying on Blair

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.