WASHINGTON -- Barry Bonds will not appear before Congress on Wednesday. Roger Clemens will be the star baseball player under oath, and he has vowed to testify he never used steroids.
But as Bonds awaits trial on charges that he lied under oath when he told a federal grand jury he had never knowingly used steroids, the credibility of those charges could be enhanced or weakened by how Clemens emerges from his testimony, according to one House member who will hear him Wednesday.
"Roger Clemens has the most to reconcile," Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) said. "And, if he's innocent, it may be that Bonds is as well."
Souder sits on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has summoned Clemens and Brian McNamee, the trainer who said he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone, to the hearing. Clemens has denied the claim and filed a defamation suit against McNamee.
The 41-member committee also has taken sworn depositions from Clemens' former teammates, Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch, each of whom McNamee said he injected with HGH. Pettitte has corroborated McNamee's statement about him; Knoblauch has not commented publicly.
As federal investigators followed the BALCO trail beyond Bonds, they identified former Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski and then McNamee as suppliers of performance-enhancing substances to major leaguers. McNamee made his statements about Clemens, Pettitte and Knoblauch to federal agents -- including Jeff Novitzky, the lead BALCO investigator.
The committee announced Monday night that Pettitte, Knoblauch and Radomski would not testify at the hearing. "Mr. Knoblauch and Mr. Pettitte answered all the committee's questions and their testimony at the hearing is not needed," the committee said in a statement. Radomski was excused from his deposition.
If Clemens can refute McNamee's claims, Souder suggests, that could cast doubt on the investigators who decided McNamee was credible -- essentially the same ones who decided Bonds was not.
That also could cast doubt upon the legitimacy of Sen. George Mitchell's report on baseball's steroid era, because Radomski and McNamee provided most of the new information in the report.
Amid contentions by Clemens' attorneys that Mitchell failed to corroborate elements of McNamee's statements, the committee also announced Monday that Mitchell investigator Charlie Scheeler would testify Wednesday as well.
