Clemens Headed Back to Hill

Feb. 6, 2008 — -- On the same day that his accuser, former trainer Brian McNamee, gives his deposition to congressional investigators, Roger Clemens will return to Capitol Hill for a meeting with Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ABC News has learned.

Cummings, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that will question Clemens and McNamee at next week's hearing on steroids in baseball, is co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Drug Policy. Cummings plans to speak with the ballplayer about helping to educate kids about the dangers of steroid use.

Attending Thursday's meeting with Cummings and Clemens will be the pitcher's attorneys. One of his lawyers told ABC News that his client had answered all of the questions posed to him by congressional investigators, during his closed door sworn deposition, Tuesday.

"Roger answered all of their questions," Clemens' attorney Rusty Hardin said in a phone interview. "There's no difference in his public statements than his private statements — just more specific responses. These are questions that he had to answer, and he answered all of them."

Next week's hearing is expected to focus on Clemens' vehement denials of McNamee's accusations that he injected Clemens more than 16 times with steroids and human growth hormone.

On Wednesday, McNamee's lawyers said that they have physical evidence, that they turned over to prosecutors, that they believe proves Clemens was injected with steroids.

However, Clemens' attorney Lanny Breuer deems the charge "just not credible.

"This is nothing but a cheap circus stunt, calculated to ruin a good man," Breuer told ABC News. "It's a vehicle for character assassination."

Hardin doesn't believe that Clemens can completely clear his name, following McNamee's allegations in former Sen. George Mitchell's scathing report about steroid use in baseball.

"I don't think he will ever be able to fully clear his name," said Hardin. "That's the horror and the evil that has happened here. Once those kinds of allegations are made public by a commission headed by a respectable senator, the damage is done."

However, Hardin is optimistic that if people keep an open mind, they might believe Clemens after he testifies before the committee.

"All we can do and all we've been trying to do, is get people to come back to the middle and try to keep an open mind," Hardin said. "Once they hear Roger and listen to him, they'll think he's telling the truth. But that's the problem with these kinds of allegations — once they're made, they're never taken back. All we can do is let Roger publicly explain his position, and hope people keep an open mind and listen to him."

After his five-hour deposition, Tuesday, Clemens maintained his defiant stance that he has never used steroids or HGH.

"I just want to thank the committee, the staff I just met with, they were very courteous," the seven-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher told reporters. "It was great to be able to tell them what I've been saying all along — that I've never used steroids or growth hormone."

Clemens has only acknowledged that McNamee injected him with vitamin B-12 and the painkiller lidocaine.

On Thursday, McNamee will come to Capitol Hill for his deposition with committee lawyers.

"I think he will initially present himself as a credible person, and that is what's led to a lot of this assumption that he's telling the truth," Hardin said.

The committee has already deposed Clemens' former teammates Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch, whom McNamee also said he provided with HGH. While Pettitte has acknowledged that the allegations are true, Knoblauch has neither admitted nor denied the charges.

Following his Feb. 1 deposition, Knoblauch, carrying his 3-year-old son Jake, said he believes that Congress is doing "an important thing," in trying to clean up the game of baseball.

"Maybe one day, when he grows up, he won't have to worry about drugs in sports," Knoblauch said about his son. "That's why I have him here today — to learn a very valuable lesson, that if you do something in life, be prepared to answer about it openly and honestly."

At a Jan. 15 hearing before the committee, Mitchell told lawmakers that Pettitte's admission lends credence to the validity of McNamee's statements.

"Since the report was issued, Andy Pettitte has said that Mr. McNamee's statements about him were true, so they confirmed the testimony," the former Senate Majority Leader said.

A fifth witness, Kirk Radomski, a former New York Mets clubhouse attendant, who said he provided drugs to numerous ballplayers, will be deposed next Tuesday, the same day the committee holds a separate hearing to examine the dangers of HGH.

Hardin added that it is his understanding with the committee that Clemens, Pettitte, Knoblauch, McNamee and Radomksi will all form part of the same panel of witnesses at the baseball hearing.