FBI Confirms Clemens Perjury Probe
Inquiry comes one day after lawmakers requested look at pitcher's testimony.
Feb. 28, 2008— -- The FBI has opened an investigation into whether Roger Clemens lied to Congress under oath about his use of performance enhancing drugs, just one day after lawmakers requested the probe.
"The request to open an investigation into the congressional testimony of Roger Clemens has been turned over to the FBI and will receive appropriate investigative action by the FBI's Washington Field Office," a spokesman for the bureau said Thursday.
Clemens has repeatedly denied using the drugs, shooting down claims that his former trainer, Brian McNamee, injected him with human growth hormone.
"I never took steroids or human growth hormone," Clemens defiantly said at a Feb. 13 hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which the star pitcher had requested.
But the chairman of the panel, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and ranking Republican Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., wrote in a letter to the Justice Department Wednesday, "That testimony is directly contradicted by the sworn testimony of Brian McNamee, who testified that he personally injected Mr. Clemens with anabolic steroids and human growth hormone."
The lawmakers sent the letter, asking the department to determine whether Clemens "committed perjury and made knowingly false statements."
"It comes as no surprise," Clemens' attorney, Rusty Hardin, said Thursday of the FBI inquiry. "We've always expected they would open an investigation. They attended the congressional hearing. So, what's new?"
The government signaled its interest in Clemens' testimony when its lead investigator into the use of steroids in professional sports, Jeff Novitsky, attended the hearing, silently sitting in the second row.
The investigation is the latest in a series of strikes against Clemens' credibility.
Late last year, the Mitchell Report, commissioned by Major League Baseball and written by former Sen. George Mitchell and his staff, detailed allegations of illegal use of steroids and human growth hormone in professional baseball. The report named Clemens as one of the accused.
