When former first lady Laura Bush's memoir was published last month, one of its tastiest tid bits was the story of the former president, Mrs. Bush and her staff coming down with a strange illness at the 2007 G8 Summit in Germany, feared as an assassination attempt.

Yahoo News recounts that the memoir stated: “Exceedingly alarmed, the Secret Service went on full alert, combing the resort for potential poisons. In the past year, there had been several high-profile poisonings, including one with suspected nuclear material, in and around Europe. The overriding fear was that terrorists had gotten control of a dangerous substance and planted it at the resort. [W]e never learned if any other delegations became ill, or if ours, mysteriously, was the only one.”

Yahoo News submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the alleged incident and reports today nothing was found:

“In reply, the Secret Service informed us today that 'a review of [our] systems of records indicates that there are no records or documents pertaining to your request in [our] files.'

”If the Secret Service was indeed 'exceedingly alarmed' and on 'full alert,' one would expect those alarms and alerts would have been noted and preserved somewhere within the executive branch's sprawling bureaucracy. It's true that agencies routinely refuse to release documents relating to presidential security. But in those cases, the FOIA compels the agencies at least to acknowledge the existence of the requested documents. So if the Secret Service did have any documents on the episode, it would have to say so."

Yes it would.