Clemens issues subpoena regarding PED claims
Roger Clemens has issued a subpoena to the House committee that he's accused of lying to about using performance-enhancing drugs during his pitching career.
The former baseball star wants all interview summaries, notes and memoranda related to the hearing on steroid use in Major League Baseball held three years ago by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, according to a copy of the subpoena dated Thursday and provided to reporters Friday by the committee.
The subpoena covers communications between the committee and 20 people, including retired baseball players Jose Canseco, Chuck Knoblauch, C.J. Nitkowski and Andy Pettitte. The list also includes Clemens' former personal trainer Brian McNamee, who told investigators he injected Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs, and staff from all four teams Clemens played for — the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees and Houston Astros.
Clemens told the committee that he never used steroids or human growth hormone during his 23-season career that ended with 354 wins, 4,672 strikeouts and seven Cy Young awards. He is facing perjury, false statement and obstruction of Congress charges in federal court.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton authorized Clemens to issue the subpoena at a hearing in December after Clemens's lawyer Rusty Hardin said the committee was refusing to turn over evidence for the criminal case. Hardin said the committee was arguing that turning the material over would violate the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches in the speech or debate clause to the Constitution.
Committee spokesman Kurt Bardella said Friday that the committee will consult with House lawyers "and will meet its obligations in this matter." It's unclear whether that means the committee will turn over material or continue to assert the speech or debate clause.
Hardin also got Walton's approval to subpoena records of baseball's investigating commission headed by George Mitchell, which in 2007 accused Clemens of using performance-enhancing drugs in a report to the baseball commissioner. The Mitchell report led to the committee's hearing. Hardin said lawyers for the Mitchell panel were claiming lawyer-client and lawyer work-product privileges.
Walton set a hearing to review the subpoenas again March 14 because he anticipated lawyers for the Mitchell panel and the committee might try to fight the subpoenas. He said that battle could end up in appeals court, but he hoped it wouldn't further delay the trial, currently scheduled for July.
The subpoena also asks for material related to: — former New York Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski, who McNamee said provided drugs he used to inject Clemens. — Clemens agent Jim Murray. — Pettitte's wife, Laura, and Canseco's ex-wife, Jessica Fisher. — Blue Jays trainer Melvin Thomas Craig, assistant athletic trainer Scott Shannon, Dr. Ron Taylor and orthopedist Allan Gross. — Houston Astros assistant athletic trainer Rex Jones, doctor David Lintner and head athletic trainer David Labossiere. — Red Sox medical director Dr. Arthur Pappas. — Yankees head trainer Eugene Monahan. — two medical experts consulted by committee staff — Dr. Frederick W. Burgess, the former president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine and Dr. Mark Murphey, chief of musculoskeletal radiology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.