In the two weeks that have passed since the first public airing of claims that Sen. Norm Coleman received clothing from Neiman Marcus purchased by a wealthy friend named Nasser Kazeminy, we’ve heard  rumors that Star Tribune reporters Paul McEnroe and Tony Kennedy have looked into the story extensively.

One version of the rumor held that editors at the paper discouraged the story, but when I phoned McEnroe earlier this week to ask about that, he vehemently denied it. “That’s not true at all,” he told me. “Whoever is telling you that doesn’t have a clue. No editor has ever dissuaded us from the work Tony and I do, with respect to any subject.”

So is there a story in the works about the alleged Coleman/Kazeminy ties? McEnroe refused to say, offering only that “We’re still working on a lot of interesting information.”

I visited Neiman Marcus myself earlier this week to see if any of the salesmen in their menswear department were willing to discuss the matter, and was promptly told by a staffer that no one there could discuss client information and that the reporters who have been coming around lately were “jeopardizing our jobs.” The individual I spoke to would not comment on a report I’d heard that sales staff there had been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Ken Silverstein, the Harper’s magazine’s Washington editor who broke the Suitgate story two weeks ago, posted this update about the matter — and about Norm Coleman’s role in promulgating it by refusing to address the question initially — on Wednesday.