Change to Win denies contact with Blago

Jeanne Cummings reports:

Change to Win, the union organization referenced in the federal bribery probe of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, says it has had no contact with Blagojevich or federal investigators.

According to the federal criminal complaint filed Tuesday, Blagojevich and his aides discussed gaining a high-paying job at Change to Win in exchange for making an Obama-friendly Senate appointment.

Blagojevich later seemed to grow cold on the idea because he wasn't sure the relatively new union organization would still be around at the end of his term, according to the complaint.

"No one at Change to Win had any involvement, discussion or contact with the governor or his advisers or anyone representing him," said Greg Denier, the group's spokesman.

"The notion of a job for the governor at Change to Win was a complete invention of the governor's office and his staff and it has no basis in reality," added Denier, who learned that his organization was named in the complaint from the news media.

"We have an executive director, a leadership counsel, and the notion that somehow the former governor of Illinois can simply step in and assume leadership of this organization, on the fact of it, is implausible," Denier said.