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Pitcher talks to several lawmakers, denying he took banned drugs
Published on Friday, Feb 08, 2008
Associated Press
WASHINGTON: Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee brought their vastly different stories to Capitol Hill on Thursday, when the star pitcher met one-on-one with congressmen informally and his former personal trainer met with House lawyers for a sworn deposition.
The seven-time Cy Young Award winner's denials of McNamee's allegations in the Mitchell Report about drug use drew Congress' attention.
McNamee did not speak to reporters on his way into the offices of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. On another floor in the Rayburn House Office Building, Clemens made brief comments as he walked through marble hallways to go to various offices of representatives on the committee. Clemens and McNamee were accompanied by lawyers.
''I'm just glad they made time in their schedule so I can go by and talk to them today,'' Clemens said shortly before stepping through the wood double doors to the office of Rep. Tom Davis, the committee's ranking Republican.
Clemens met with Davis and committee chairman Henry Waxman for about 20 minutes, then signed an autograph for a bystander upon exiting.
''I'm ready for Wednesday to get here,'' Clemens said earlier, referring to the committee's public hearing next week, when he, McNamee and other witnesses, including current New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, are to testify.
In former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's report on doping in baseball, released in December, McNamee said he injected Clemens 16 times with steroids and human growth hormone in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Clemens has repeatedly denied those accusations, including, he said, under oath during his deposition with committee lawyers Tuesday.
Clemens was to visit about a dozen congressmen Thursday and today, according to a schedule released by Clemens' camp. Clemens, 45, who pitched for the Yankees last season, requested the meetings. 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,'' one of Clemens' lawyers, Rusty Hardin, said outside the office of Rep. John Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat on the committee.
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.''
Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat on the committee, said after speaking with Clemens: ''While he asked for the meeting, I wanted to make sure that when all the dust settles, that he fully understood that baseball players — whether they want to be or not — are role models and that children are looking at them.''
On Wednesday, word emerged that McNamee's representatives turned over gauze pads and syringes they said had Clemens' blood to IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky in early January. A person familiar with the evidence, speaking on condition of anonymity because McNamee's lawyers did not want to publicly discuss details, said the syringes were used to inject Clemens with steroids and HGH. A second person, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the evidence was from 2000 and 2001.
''I think this is a significant point in the case. We believe that this is significant corroboration,'' McNamee's lead lawyer, Earl Ward, said Wednesday.
Hardin, though, scoffed Thursday when asked if he was worried about the physical evidence.
''Find a prosecutor or a judge that would ever see this as evidence, all right? This is waste material. In fact, I think we're going to file a complaint with the health department,'' Hardin said.
''McNamee really did us a great favor yesterday because it truly revealed what he's out to do — and that's to destroy Roger.''
Richard Emery, another of McNamee's lawyers, said Wednesday the committee was going to be given a description of the evidence that was turned over to prosecutors.
''It does change the nature of the case from a he-said, she-said to something about physical evidence,'' Emery said.
Doping expert Don Catlin said steroids still could be detected in a sample that old.
''But if you don't find it, it doesn't mean it wasn't there before,'' said Catlin, who added there are sure to be chain-of-custody issues.
He said HGH would be much less stable.
Keith Ausbrook, the committee's Republican general counsel, told the Associated Press the committee was not aware that such physical evidence existed.
Get the full article here.
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