* If you click here and watch this video, you’ll see JB Pritzker blame the Tribune’s Blagojevich story yesterday on Gov. Rauner’s campaign…

When I decided to run for governor, it was clear to me that Gov. Rauner and the GOP had nothing except the kitchen sink that they wanted to throw at the Democrats and particularly at me because Bruce Rauner’s afraid to run against me.

And, so, this is a nine-year-old tape that they are leaking in an attempt to distract from the fact that 700 days into this administration, into this failure of a budget, this governor has done nothing for the people of the state of Illinois.

He’s chosen to do this on the 700th day. A day when at the end of session it looks like we won’t get a budget for yet another year. So, Bruce Rauner having failed, the GOP having failed, this is their massive attempt to distract.

Pritzker said more about that later in the same media availability and then said much the same thing during another avail he had last night. Click here for that one…

It’s clear that Bruce Rauner and the GOP have nothing to run on, and so they are simply attacking… I knew when I decided to run for governor that they were going to throw the kitchen sink, that they were going to try to take down all the Democrats, particularly me because I think they’re mostly afraid of running against me in the general election. […]

So, what are they gonna run on? They can only run on trashing Democrats and introducing this idea of a nine-year-old leaked tape and attacking me.

* But the Tribune’s Jeff Coen was on WBEZ this morning and was asked about his source…

We don’t ever talk about sourcing on these kinds of issues. I know the [Pritzker] campaign threw out a Bruce Rauner allegation. That’s not correct. I can say that. […]

This is Tribune reporting going back over … We have had routes for information on this case. I mean for me personally I’ve been protecting sources on this case back to 2006.

* Audio…

* I asked the Pritzker campaign if they still stood by the allegations that this story was leaked by Rauner and/or the GOP to “distract” people…

“This is a continuation of attacks Bruce Rauner and the ILGOP have already made and the leak happened to coincide with the 700th day of session, where the governor failed to pass a budget for a third year.”

So, they tightened it up a bunch and dropped the direct connection allegation.

* The Pritzker campaign does appear to have some legit beefs about the way this story was reported out. They say they were only given an hour to respond to the story and weren’t told that tapes even existed. The Tribune reporters, the campaign claims, wouldn’t even read them any excerpts from the Blagojevich conversations, which is why the campaign’s first response seemed so oddly off-topic.

The question remains as well whether a federal judge’s order sealing these tapes was somehow violated. Remember, this was a huge issue back in the day. Blagojevich kept demanding that the judge “Release the tapes!” and the judge wouldn’t do it. This was a private conversation that didn’t result in any charges or even any testimony and yet it’s now public.

Campaign opposition researcher Will Caskey said this in comments yesterday…

I’m working in the gov primary for another candidate and am disgusted by this entire story. Nonpublic incidental collection should never be used for anything other than its intended purpose; that’s the entire reason the FBI is allowed to wiretap suspects. […]

This is the second time incidental collection from the Blagojevich trial has been used to embarrass a political target outside the investigation. People should be fired over this, and it’s disgusting nothing will happen.