January 09, 2008
Raining on the Hearings
The House of Representatives put the tarp on the witness table for the ballplayers as they postponed the hearing into steroid use until Feb. 13, 2008.
Congress wants to be prepared when Roger Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee, head to Capitol Hill. The House hearing involving Clemens, McNamee and Andy Pettitte was postponed Wednesday from Jan. 16 until Feb. 13, giving lawmakers more time to gather evidence, to take depositions from the witnesses and to coordinate their investigation with the Justice Department.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was to begin meeting with lawyers for the witnesses Thursday. Clemens' attorney, Rusty Hardin, said he hopes to meet with committee staffers next week. In addition, McNamee is to meet with federal prosecutors Thursday in New York.
"Roger hasn't done anything," Hardin said. "The federal government looking at Roger is fine with me."
Plans are still in place for the Jan. 15 hearing before the same committee about the Mitchell Report on baseball's Steroids Era. The witnesses that day will be commissioner Bud Selig, union leader Donald Fehr and former Senate majority leader George Mitchell, the report's author.
If you have tickets, they can be exchanged for any house hearing or put toward season tickets for the Senate. :-)
Posted by David Pinto at
11:26 PM
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From today's NY Times..
Before the hearing's postponement was announced Wednesday, McNamee's lawyers said they were starting to ask Congress to seek an order compelling him to testify, in effect, giving him immunity from prosecution for his testimony.
Emery said. "... we have to make sure we get the same deal from Congress."
Clemens said Monday that he would testify before the panel without immunity.
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Immunity? Why? What else has McNamee done? Was he not completely forthcoming/truthful in his talks with the Dept. of Justice the first two times, in which he ralso eceived immunity?
You can't have a circus without the elephants and donkeys in DC!
Feb 13th, the day before pitchers & catchers and it's a Yankee pitcher (Pettitte) who has to go testify? No Red Sox -- oh, that's right, none of them were named (as RS players). Good thing Mitchell has no ties to the Red Sox.
/sarcasm
Questons to ask at the first hearing:
Sen. Mitchell - you were quoted during a 2004 CNN interview as saying you were a minority owner of the Red Sox, but now you deny it. What is/was the truth?
Commissioner Selig - when you appeared before Congress regarding the FANS act, you made statements regarding the complete sharing of financial records with Congress that could be construed as perjury. Why should we believe you today?
Mr. Fehr - there was a workign drug testing program which included random testing and probale cause testing instituted after the Pittsburgh cocaine trials. What happened to that agreement and why did the MLBPA not discuss testing for the next 15 years?