CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, communicated with the office of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois about potential candidates for Mr. Obama’s Senate seat and provided a list of names, according to two Obama associates briefed on the matter.
The Obama associates said the interactions concerned several people who might fill the seat. Such contacts are common among party officials when a political vacancy is to be filled. It was not clear whether the communication was via direct telephone calls.
The Chicago Tribune reported that communications between Mr. Emanuel and the governor, both Democrats, had been captured on court-approved wiretaps, but Obama associates gave conflicting accounts of the interactions.
Obama aides have said privately that Mr. Emanuel did not engage in any deal-making with Mr. Blagojevich, whom federal prosecutors charged last week with conspiring to turn a profit from the appointment.
The federal inquiry is looking into the exact nature of Mr. Emanuel’s contacts with the governor’s office. Mr. Emanuel has not been accused of wrongdoing by federal prosecutors.
Mr. Obama has said he has never spoken with the governor about the seat. But Mr. Obama’s aides have declined for five days to answer publicly questions about what discussions they had about the seat, with several saying they were doing so at the request of the office of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
In announcing the charges against Mr. Blagojevich, Mr. Fitzgerald said the president-elect was not implicated in the case.
The Illinois governor alone has the power to fill such vacancies. The criminal complaint against him alleges that he sought to benefit personally from the appointment by securing high-paying jobs for himself and his wife, or campaign contributions, in return for his selection.
Mr. Obama said Thursday that his aides were looking through all of their possible contacts with the governor and would release more information in the coming days. Republicans, meanwhile, have raised questions about Mr. Obama’s refusal to say more and about his past ties with the main characters in the story.
Mr. Emanuel’s list of possible candidates included a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, Valerie Jarrett; the Illinois attorney general, Lisa Madigan; Representative Jan Schakowsky; and Dan Hynes, the state comptroller.
The criminal complaint quotes Mr. Blagojevich as saying at one point that Mr. Obama’s aides were not willing to give him anything more than “appreciation” in return for appointing a candidate they favored.
Ms. Schakowsky told The New York Times last week that she called Mr. Emanuel last month when she was exploring whether she might fill Mr. Obama’s seat. She and Mr. Emanuel had served in the House together.
Ms. Schakowsky said Mr. Emanuel had declined to tell her if Mr. Obama had a favorite to fill the seat. She said he seemed wary about Mr. Blagojevich.
Transition officials would not comment publicly on Saturday.
One of the schemes Mr. Blagojevich is accused of involves Mr. Emanuel’s House seat, for which Illinois law requires a special election.
According to the criminal complaint, Mr. Blagojevich talked about approaching an unnamed “president-elect adviser” to ask for help raising “10, 15 million” for the governor to start a nonprofit organization.
The complaint quoted Mr. Blagojevich as saying that when the president-elect adviser asked him about the special election for the House seat, Mr. Blagojevich wanted “it to be in his head.”
