Observers Doubt Clemens Testimony; Experts Predict Perjury Investigation
Someone had to be lying, as a former trainer testified before a congressional committee yesterday that famed major league baseball pitcher Roger Clemens had repeatedly used steroids, and Clemens insisted he didn’t. But who?
The answer, some are saying today, is … Clemens. “His story doesn’t ring true,” contends Richard Justice in a Houston Chronicle editorial. “Those are painful words to write because Roger Clemens has always represented professional sports at its best. He stood for the right things.”
Yet the evidence is mounting that Clemens did, in fact, use performance-enhancing steroids, Justice says. In addition to trainer Brian McNamee’s testimony that he repeatedly injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone, Clemens’ former Houston Astros teammate and friend, Andy Pettitte, testified that Clemens admitted to him that he had used HGH. They gave their differing accounts yesterday to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Although Clemens managed, in his testimony, to make McNamee “look like a lying weasel,” it appears that McNamee may well be telling the truth now, even though he has admittedly lied in the past, writes Justice. “McNamee was perfectly credible in discussing Clemens but has told so many lies over the years that it’s impossible to know when he’s lying and when he’s not.”
Writes Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke: “In an extraordinarily sad moment, the pusher was more believable than the pitcher.”
Legal experts point out that a perjury investigation could be launched against Clemens as a result of his testimony, the Chronicle reports in another article.
Some say they aren’t sure which side was telling the truth yesterday. “In the end I could not believe beyond a reasonable doubt that either one was lying, though it was clear one of them was,” says famed Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz. However, he predicts not only a perjury investigation of Clemens but a perjury indictment against him, apparently because he expects Justice Department investigators, like the committee chairman, to be “predisposed against him.”
Additional coverage:
Los Angeles Times: “Clemens doesn’t come off as a winner”
San Francisco Chronicle’s C.W. Nevius.blog: “Roger Clemens Doesn’t Have a Clue”
Associated Press: “Clemens Takes His Lumps on Capitol Hill”
ESPN: “Body language analyst breaks down Clemens, McNamee performances”
