Boehner rep says no Pelosi golf balls

An earlier item in this space said a fundraiser hosted by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) used golf balls featuring a likeness of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), but Boehner's office is denying it, and POLITICO has no independent verification that the golf balls were, in fact, distributed at the fundraiser. POLITICO regrets the error.

Boehner is back in Ohio during this first week of the August congressional recess, and he held a fundraiser at the famed Muirfield Village Golf Club on Tuesday.

Ed Burke, a member of the Service Employees International Union who was protesting outside Boehner's fundraiser, said an unidentified man driving out of the country club gave the ball featuring a picture of Pelosi to the protestors. "I pissed 'em off by telling them that I didn't want to use this ball," Burke said the man told them. Burke did not see the man attending Boehner's event.

A Boehner spokesman categorically denied that Boehner or any of his political aides distributed the Pelosi golf balls. "It did not come from us," said Cory Fritz, a Boehner spokesman. "We have absolutely nothing to do with this."

Burke denied that SEIU or any of the protestors planted the ball or were in any way responsible for it being there. "I stand by my story," Burke said.