Clemens continues lobbying
WASHINGTON (AP) - February 8, 2008 The seven-time Cy Young Award winner began a second day of
informal sit-downs with members of the congressional committee
looking into the Mitchell Report on drug use in baseball - and,
more specifically, looking into Clemens' denials of allegations by
his former personal trainer, Brian McNamee, about injections of
steroids and human growth hormone.
After meeting with about a dozen representatives Thursday,
Clemens was slated to meet with another six Friday. He arrived at
the office of Rep. Danny Davis, an Illinois Democrat, shortly after
9:30 a.m.
"It's highly unusual, and that's why I think one would try to
determine the rationale for it. What is he trying to accomplish?"
Davis said in an interview with The Associated Press before Clemens
arrived. "I am willing to hear him out and hear what he has to
say."
The world gets a chance to hear what Clemens will say under oath
Wednesday, when he, McNamee and New York Yankees pitcher Andy
Pettitte are to testify at a House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee hearing. Until then, the committee is investigating.
Clemens gave a sworn deposition Tuesday. McNamee's turn came
Thursday, when he met for seven hours with congressional lawyers.
During McNamee's deposition, his lawyers showed the committee
photographs of syringes and vials and even a crumpled beer can.
McNamee's lawyers say the items, when tested, will link Clemens to
the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
In the Mitchell Report, McNamee said he injected Clemens more
than a dozen times with steroids and HGH in 1998, 2000 and 2001.
Clemens has repeatedly denied those allegations.
"Roger Clemens has put himself in a position where his legacy
as the greatest pitcher in baseball will depend less on his ERA and
more on his DNA," one of McNamee's lawyers, Earl Ward, said
Thursday.
Less than an hour later, not far away in the Rayburn House
Office Building, Clemens and his attorneys held their own news
conference. Clemens said little, but his lawyers repeatedly
attacked McNamee's character and scoffed at the newly presented
evidence.
"This man has a total history of lying," Clemens' attorney
Rusty Hardin said.
McNamee's lawyers called on Clemens to provide a DNA sample.
Asked about that, Hardin said the pitcher would comply with any
request of that type from a federal authority.
"But they're going to have to come to us," Hardin said.
McNamee's attorneys did not know when the items would be tested,
or when the results might be known.
"We look forward to the results of these tests," said another
McNamee lawyer, Richard Emery, "and we look forward to just
definitively finishing this whole controversy and ending this
circus."
McNamee's attorneys said he turned over physical evidence to
federal prosecutors, shortly after Clemens held a Jan. 7 nationally
televised news conference at which he played a taped conversation
between the two men.
"At that point," Ward said, "(McNamee) decided there was no
holds barred."
One photo shows a beer can that Emery said was taken out of a
trash can in Clemens' New York apartment in 2001. Emery said the
beer can contained needles used to inject Clemens. That picture
also shows what Emery said was gauze used to wipe blood off Clemens
after a shot.
The other photo shows vials of what Emery said were testosterone
and unused needles, items the attorney said Clemens gave to
McNamee.
While Clemens' camp called it "manufactured" evidence, Emery
said the items were "just a collection of stuff" thrown in a box
and "kept in a basement for seven years."
Emery said McNamee kept the items because he "had this inkling
and gut feeling that he couldn't trust Roger and better keep
something to protect himself in the future."
Clemens met Thursday with committee chairman Henry Waxman and
ranking Republican Tom Davis for about 20 minutes, then signed an
autograph for a bystander upon exiting. That was one of many times
Clemens was asked to stop to affix his name to something or pose
for a snapshot.
Clemens' deposition Tuesday was the first time he addressed
McNamee's allegations under oath, and therefore the first time he
put himself at legal risk if he were to make false statements.
Thursday's bizarre events served as something of a dress
rehearsal for Wednesday's session, which will be held in the same
wood-paneled hearing room that housed the committee's 2005 hearing
with Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro.
That hearing was part of Congress' push to get baseball to
toughen its drug program, increasing tests and penalties. It also
led to former Senate majority leader George Mitchell's report on
doping in baseball.
The 45-year-old Clemens, who pitched for the Yankees last
season, requested Thursday's meetings with the committee members.
He carried a white three-ring binder as he headed from one House
office building to another, going through a garage and taking a
freight elevator at one point.
"Because the perception out there was so strong originally that
he did it and was lying, he's going to extra steps to try and
persuade and make people comfortable with the fact that he didn't
do it. He's having to take extraordinary measures because the
allegations are extraordinary," Hardin said.
Hardin said Clemens was meeting with individual representatives
"to assure them privately the same thing he's saying publicly -
that he didn't take steroids, and he didn't take human growth
hormone, and he's here to talk to anybody about it who wants to."
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)