Clemens, McNamee Bring Battle to Congress

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The New York Sun

WASHINGTON — Roger Clemens spent today going door-to-door on Capitol Hill, lobbying congressmen investigating whether he used drugs. His accuser, Brian McNamee, gave a seven-hour deposition and his lawyers presented photographs of evidence they said will prove the star pitcher used performance-enhancing drugs.

Mr. McNamee headed straight for the exit, not speaking a word to reporters, when he emerged from his interview with lawyers from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. His attorneys wouldn’t discuss the deposition, but they did talk at length about two color photographs they showed the committee for the first time.

“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 Mr. McNamee’s lawyers, Earl Ward, said.

The seven-time Cy Young Award winner’s denials of Mr. McNamee’s allegations in the Mitchell Report about drug use drew Congress’ attention. The committee has scheduled a public hearing for Wednesday, when Messrs. Clemens, McNamee, and other witnesses, including the New York Yankees pitcher, Andy Pettitte, are to testify.

Mr. McNamee’s attorneys said their client turned over physical evidence to a federal prosecutor for the Northern District of California last month, shortly after Mr. Clemens held a January 7 nationally televised news conference at which he played a taped conversation between the two men with conflicting accounts at the center of the issue.

“At that point,” Mr. Ward said, “(McNamee) decided there was no holds barred.”

One photo shows a crushed beer can — which another of McNamee’s attorneys, Richard Emery, said was taken out of a trash can in Mr. Clemens’s New York apartment in late 2001 — that contained needles used to inject Mr. Clemens. That picture also shows what Mr. Emery said was gauze used to wipe blood off Mr. Clemens after a shot.

The other picture shows vials of what Mr. Emery said were testosterone, and needles — items the attorney said Mr. Clemens gave to Mr. McNamee for safekeeping at the end of the 2002 baseball season.

Mr. 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,” Mr. Emery said, “and we look forward to just definitively finishing this whole controversy and ending this circus.”

About an hour later, and a short walk away, Mr. Clemens held a news conference at which one of his attorneys, Rusty Hardin, repeatedly attacked Mr. McNamee, calling him a “troubled, not-well man.”


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