US spy bosses ‘backed UK in Trump bug row’

SPY chiefs in the UK and US were united against Donald Trump’s accusation that GCHQ bugged Trump Towers, a book has revealed.

The White House repeated the claim, made by legal analyst Andrew Napolitano on Fox News in March 2017, that Barack Obama had used the British intelligence agency to wiretap the then president-elect.

With the special relationship at stake, it led to an unprecedented denial by Britain’s spy chiefs, who branded the allegation ‘utterly ridiculous’.

It has now emerged their counterpart across the Atlantic told Robert Hannigan, then director of GCHQ, they would support whatever action he wanted to take against the ‘baseless allegation’.

Admiral Mike Rogers, then National Security Agency director, told the White House he would publicly testify against the ‘total BS’.

The revelations were made in Richard Kerbaj’s book, The Secret History Of The Five Eyes: The Untold Story Of The International Spy Network.

It also reveals comments by Theresa May that the incident caused the UK to recalibrate the special relationship.