Clemens, McNamee face off in steroid testimony

WASHINGTON - For more than four hours yesterday, the potential Hall of Fame pitcher Roger Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee sat 10 feet from one another, hurling accusations, calling the other man a liar, but ultimately solving nothing.

The highly anticipated matchup of Clemens and his former friend before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee produced public and media interest comparable, longtime staffers said, to previous testimonies from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or former CIA spy Valerie Plame Wilson. Room 2054 in the Rayburn House Office Building was packed.

But strong questioning from the committee chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.); the ranking minority member, Rep. Tom Davis (R., Va.), and other committee members didn't change either man's story, with McNamee insisting that he injected Clemens with steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs on numerous occasions from 1998 to 2001, and Clemens heatedly denying it.

"I have never taken steroids or HGH," said Clemens, whose reputation and legacy were at stake. "No matter what we discuss here today, I am never going to have my name restored."

Neither Waxman nor Davis would predict afterward what the committee would do. They said it was possible that it could reach the conclusion that either Clemens or McNamee lied under oath, yet not recommend that the Justice Department pursue perjury charges.

"We've known from the very beginning that they both couldn't be telling the truth when they both had diametrically opposed positions," Davis said in a joint appearance with Waxman. "Someone lying is not necessarily committing perjury."

The day centered on a few key points of vehement disagreement stemming from McNamee's testimony to former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who headed the investigation of potential steroid use in Major League Baseball. Mitchell's report, released late last year, named 89 current and former players who either acknowledged using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs - or told others they had.

Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner and one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball history, is one of the few who denied the findings in the report, and he did so again before Congress.

He said that while he had no problems with Mitchell or the report in general, he took "great issue with the report's allegation that I used these substances. Let me be clear again: I did not."

McNamee apologized for some of his actions, saying, "I have tainted our national pastime." But he firmly contradicted Clemens.

"Make no mistake," McNamee said. "When I told Sen. Mitchell that I injected Roger Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs, I told the truth. I told the truth about steroids and human growth hormone. I injected those drugs into the body of Roger Clemens at his direction."

Among the other key points of disagreement:

Depositions from both pitcher Andy Pettitte, Clemens' close friend while both played for the Yankees and Astros, and from Pettitte's wife detailing conversations Pettitte had with both Clemens and McNamee.

A party at former slugger Jose Canseco's home in Miami in 1998, while Clemens played with the Toronto Blue Jays, where McNamee, in the Mitchell Report, claimed that Clemens and Canseco had met and that, days later, Clemens approached McNamee and, for the first time, according to McNamee, brought up the subject of using steroids.

How hard Mitchell and his staff tried to reach Clemens in 2007, before the Mitchell report was released. Clemens says he would have denied the findings if he had been told by the committee the serious charges that McNamee had lodged against him.

Pettitte claimed that Clemens acknowledged using steroids in a conversation between the two in either 1999 or 2000, and that he and McNamee talked about human growth hormone (HGH) with Clemens in 2001. Pettitte, along with former major-leaguer Chuck Knoblauch, admitted using HGH after being named in the Mitchell report, and backed up McNamee's contention that he had talked about steroids with Clemens.

Pettitte was originally scheduled to testify, but was excused after giving his deposition in private. Clemens repeatedly said yesterday that Pettitte simply "misremembered" the conversation that the two had had in 1999 or 2000, and that he never talked about HGH with McNamee.

"Andy Pettitte is my friend," Clemens said. "He was my friend before this; he will be my friend after this. And, again, I think Andy has misheard. I believe Andy has misheard on his comments about me using HGH, which never happened."

But Clemens was forced to acknowledge he had spoken with McNamee about HGH in 2005, in two "heated conversations," after McNamee had injected Clemens' wife, Debbie, in 2003 with HGH in Clemens' home.

Clemens said he didn't know his wife had received the injection until she began complaining about having a reaction to the injection. Neither Clemens nor his wife sought medical attention for her afterward.

Clemens denied being at the 1998 party at Canseco's house, producing a receipt from a nearby golf club where he says he played golf that day. Statements from other Blue Jays employees backing up Clemens' claim were cited, as well as television reports at the time that also indicated Clemens wasn't there.

But Waxman produced testimony from the Clemenses' former nanny, who was not named, but who was interviewed this past Monday. The nanny, who has not worked for Clemens for several years, said that Clemens was present at the party. She also said she was there along with Clemens' children, who stayed at Canseco's house with the nanny overnight.

Waxman also hinted at improprieties by Clemens and his lawyers, claiming that they contacted the nanny over the weekend after the committee had asked to speak with her, and that Clemens's attorneys interviewed her before giving her contact information to the committee.

"It sure raises the appearance of impropriety," Waxman said.

This caused one of Clemens' attorneys, Rusty Hardin, to rise to his feet.

"It was my idea to investigate what witnesses know, just like any lawyer in the free world does," Hardin said.

After a break, Clemens said he might have dropped his wife and children off at the party.

"Could I have gone by the house late in the afternoon and dropped them off? Sure," Clemens said.

With a couple of exceptions, the search for truth almost seemed to become partisan, with Republicans on the committee taking a harsh line with McNamee and Democrats appearing more skeptical of Clemens.

Rep. Dan Burton (R., Ind.) chastised McNamee for keeping needles and gauze pads that McNamee claims he used when injecting Clemens with steroids and other performance-enhancers, and then spent several minutes going over falsehoods that McNamee, by his own admission, initially told federal investigators.

"You're here to tell the truth," Burton said. "You're here under oath. And yet we have lie after lie after lie after lie. I don't know what to believe. I know who I don't believe, and that's you."

Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said that McNamee was a "drug dealer" with credibility problems. And Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) produced four side-by-side pictures of Clemens over the years that she said showed no appreciable difference in Clemens' physique.

But Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.) continually invoked Pettitte's deposition while asking Clemens why Pettitte would confirm McNamee's testimony about himself but lie about McNamee's testimony about Clemens.

"If I walked into here and it was even-steven between you and Mr. McNamee, I must tell you that the person I believe the most is Mr. Pettitte," Cummings said. "All I'm saying is, it's hard to believe you, sir. You're one of my heroes. But it's hard to believe you."

And Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D., D.C.) was incredulous that Clemens kept McNamee employed even after McNamee acknowledged to Clemens that he'd taken credit for devising the workout that Clemens used, made use of a picture of Clemens for a potential business deal without Clemens' permission, and injected his wife with HGH without Clemens' knowledge.

"I'm a forgiving person," Clemens said.

"Well," Norton said, "all I can say is, I'm sure you're going to heaven."