TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Clemens Hearing: He Said, He Said

ADVERTISEMENT

Duff Wilson/The New York Times

Published: February 14, 2008

WASHINGTON Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee kept a tight grip on their contradictory accounts of illegal drug use in a dramatic showdown Wednesday before a congressional panel whose 40 Democrats and Republicans seemed to line up and take sides on a partisan basis.

In a four-hour hearing in which Clemens and McNamee shared the same table but never seemed to look at each other, Clemens continued to insist, under sometimes strenuous questioning, that McNamee never injected him with steroids and human growth hormone, as McNamee maintains.

"I have never taken steroids or HGH. No matter what we discuss here today, I am never going to have my name restored," Clemens said.

"I have strong disagreements with what this man says about me," he said.

"I told the investigators I injected three people - two of whom I know confirmed my account," McNamee said. "The third is sitting at this table."

Missing from the witness table but present nonetheless was Clemens' friend and former teammate, Andy Pettitte, who in an affidavit, along with a separate one submitted by his wife, provided some of the most difficult moments of the day for Clemens.

Both affidavits stated that Clemens, in the past, had talked to Pettitte about Clemens' use of HGH.

Clemens, in repeated questioning about Pettitte's sworn statements, stated several times that Pettitte "misremembers" the conversations that they had.

"Andy Pettitte is my friend. He was my friend before this. He will be my friend after this and again, I think Andy has misheard," Clemens said. "I think he misremembers."
For some members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Clemens' denials rang hollow.

"It's hard to believe you, sir," Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., told Clemens. "I hate to say that. You're one of my heroes. But it's hard to believe."

Former Friends, Now Opponents

Clemens and McNamee by all accounts once good friends, rarely looked at one another.

McNamee, 40, of Breezy Point, N.Y., spoke with traces of his native Queens County.

Often leaning forward with his elbows on the table, he appeared unrattled, never nervous. He often answered even the most hostile question with a "No, sir" or "Yes, ma'am," seldom elaborating.

Several Republicans lashed into McNamee.

"You are a drug dealer," Rep. Christopher Shays, R- Conn., said as he pointed at McNamee. Clemens, Shays said, was "a true icon in baseball."
McNamee said he regretted his role in baseball's steroids era but was a trainer, not a dealer. "I only did what players asked, and it was wrong," he said.

Rep. Darrell E. Issa, R-Calif., asked McNamee why he persisted in saying he was not a drug dealer. "I just do what they ask," McNamee said of the players.
Issa responded, "You know, that's what every drug pusher says."

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the committee's chairman, later apologized for those remarks, and Richard Emery, an attorney for McNamee, called them disgraceful.

"God knows whose water they were carrying, but it was pretty obvious the lobbying tour had an effect on them," Emery said in reference to the three days Clemens spent visiting committee members in their offices.

The hearing ended with Waxman pounding the gavel sharply to keep Clemens from interrupting him, but with the committee drawing no immediate conclusions as to who was being truthful.

That question may well be left to the Department of Justice, which could pursue charges against Clemens or, less likely, McNamee for lying under oath.

The Justice Department also is reviewing used needles and bloody gauze pads McNamee turned over. He said they contained performance-enhancing drugs and Clemens' DNA.

"We found conflicts and inconsistencies in Mr. Clemens' accounts," Waxman said. "During his deposition, he made statements we know are untrue."

The hearing revealed a political fracture more common to instances in which presidents are being investigated, not pitchers with Hall of Fame credentials.
Many Democrats took aim at Clemens, and many Republicans targeted McNamee for untruths or partial truths that he has acknowledged in past statements.

Sitting between them, mostly silent, was a lawyer who had worked with former Sen. George Mitchell on his 20-month investigation on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

The lawyer, Charles P. Scheeler, said he and fellow investigators still stood by the Mitchell report, including the section in which McNamee stated that Clemens took steroids and human growth hormone on 16 occasions in 1998, 2000 and 2001.

Until recently, the committee's investigation of drug use in baseball had seemed to be bipartisan.

In 2005, the panel held a hearing where the slugger Mark McGwire declined to answer most questions about steroid use.

That hearing was led by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who now heads the committee minority and who at one point on Wednesday used the word "lynching" to describe the questioning of Clemens.

But Waxman, an aggressive investigator of the Bush administration, pressed hard on Clemens, stating flatly that he did not believe some of Clemens' account.

Tempers Flare At End Of Hearing

That led to the flare-up at the end of the hearing, with Clemens interrupting Waxman's final summary of the damaging statements by Pettitte.

"Doesn't mean he wasn't mistaken, sir," Clemens said of Pettitte. Waxman hit the gavel sharply twice to silence him. "Doesn't mean he wasn't mistaken, sir," Clemens repeated.

Clemens now has denied using steroids and HGH in a sworn deposition to the committee on Feb. 5 and in the testimony under oath on Wednesday.

His attorneys said he insisted on the hearing to try to clear his name, a bold move despite the risk of a perjury prosecution.

Waxman said he had offered Clemens the chance to call off the hearing after depositions were taken last week, but that Clemens wanted to make his case publicly. The hearing was nationally televised.

"The only reason we had this hearing was because Roger Clemens insisted on it," Waxman said afterward.

Jeff Novitzky, the IRS special agent who has investigated steroid cases against prominent athletes, including Barry Bonds and Marion Jones, sat with two other federal agents in the second row, behind chairs reserved for McNamee's friends. He presumably will be involved in any Justice Department investigation.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Roger Clemens

An aggressive pitching style and a searing fastball carried the man known as "the Rocket" to the kind of career numbers that would likely make him a first-ballot Hall of Fame pick: 354 wins, 3.12 earned run average and seven Cy Young Awards. Playing for the Boston Red Sox in the 1980s, he was the league's dominant power pitcher. He later played for the Toronto Blue Jays; the New York Yankees, where he won his first World Series game; and the Houston Astros.

Brian McNamee

A former New York police officer, he was employed by the Yankees. But now he stands as the man who delivered a blow to the team by linking two pitchers to illegal, performance-enhancing drugs. McNamee made the charges in former Sen. George Mitchell's report to Major League Baseball. A personal trainer for Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, McNamee said he had injected Clemens with steroids and Pettitte with human growth hormone.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT