"I think he misremembers the conversation," Clemens said.
However, Pettitte also said that in 2005, he asked Clemens what he would say if reporters asked whether he had used performance-enhancing substances, given their previous conversation. Pettitte said Clemens told him he must have misunderstood that conversation since his wife, Debbie, had used HGH.
Yet, as Waxman and Cummings noted, Clemens and McNamee agreed that McNamee had injected Debbie Clemens with HGH in 2003. At the time of that previous conversation, then, Debbie Clemens had not used HGH.
After Clemens testified that Pettitte "is a very honest fellow," Cummings asked Clemens what motive Pettitte might have to "fabricate a story about you, his friend?"
Said Clemens: "Andy would have no reason to."
Later in the hearing, Cummings said that, faced with concerns about the credibility of Clemens and McNamee, he would side with Pettitte.
"To have Clemens verify the guy as very honest, I can't do much better than that," Cummings said afterward.
Said Waxman: "I think McNamee has a lot of credibility. . . . It's Clemens' word not just against McNamee's, but against Pettitte's."
But Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) said after the hearing that he did not put much stock into Pettitte's conversations with Clemens. "It's just a whole lot of locker-room talk," he said. "It's not actual evidence."
McNamee's credibility took several hits during the hearing, perhaps most under questioning about a party he said Clemens had attended at Canseco's Miami home in 1998, when Clemens and Canseco played for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Davis said committee investigators asked Canseco, his ex-wife, two Toronto trainers, one teammate and the team's traveling secretary about the claim. None could recall seeing Clemens there, Davis said.
Waxman later produced testimony from Clemens' nanny, saying he had been at Canseco's house during that weekend, if not necessarily at the party itself. Waxman criticized Clemens' lawyers for speaking with the nanny before committee investigators did, saying the action "raised the question of whether you tried to influence her testimony," which prompted outbursts from Hardin and another Clemens attorney, Lanny Breuer.
"This is nothing but innuendo," Breuer said.
