On August 19th, the District Attorney for the District of Columbia filed a six-count, 19-page, indictment in federal court against Roger Clemens stemming from Clemens’ allegedly-false 2008 statements before Congress about his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs. Pretrial motions are scheduled for March 8th, and trial is scheduled to commence on April 5th. If convicted, Clemens faces a $1.5M fine and prison sentence of 12 months to 30 years, although the presiding judge could grant probation without jail time. Many are beginning to ask why this is all happening, and the voices certainly will become louder as trial approaches.
Historically, perjury charges, like those filed against Clemens, are exceedingly difficult to prove in the best of circumstances and usually are secondary to far more serious alleged crimes against the defendant. Here, Clemens is a celebrity with an otherwise clean record who has donated millions of dollars to charities over the last 20 years and who is alleged to have done nothing wrong beyond lie to Congress about his alleged drug use during a voluntary two-day deposition in February 2008. Furthermore, Clemens has hired some of the best attorneys and forensic experts that money can buy. To the best of the public’s knowledge, the prosecution’s best witness, former Clemens fitness trainer, Brian McNamee, is a disgraced former NYPD officer who once was questioned for a date rape involving GHB in a Florida hotel and who is reportedly testifying against Clemens as part of a plea bargain to avoid criminal charges of his own. Further, the physical evidence that McNamee possesses, which apparently includes syringes with Clemens DNA on it, was collected over seven years ago. Even assuming all proper preservation steps were taken, the jury naturally will wonder whether McNamee intended to set-up Clemens all along. Clemens has admitted that McNamee did inject him with drugs, but, to Clemens’ knowledge, those drugs were limited to vitamin B12 and the painkiller lidocaine. The defense team will argue that Clemens did not know what McNamee injected him with every time. Further, it certainly is possible that Clemens’ DNA found its way into the syringes before the PEDs did. Finally, Clemens’ lawyers will wrap this whole trial in a nice package of irony and hypocrisy. Many people believe that the majority of elected officials lie to each other and the American public on a regular basis, and it is unlikely that the government will gain much sympathy from the jury. Add to that the huge cost of this case to the taxpayer, and several jurors may wish to see several members of Congress put in jail when this trial is over.
With the deck apparently stacked so heavily against the DOJ, why is this happening? Three motivating factors seem obvious. First, legitimate law-and-order types, regardless of the cost, simply may wish to enforce the law, maintain the integrity of Congress, punish those who they believe have abused an oath, and/or use the trial as an opportunity to further send a message to those professional athletes who are taking or are considering taking PEDs. Second, Democrats dominate the Committee that Clemens allegedly lied to and which has asked the DOJ to prosecute Clemens. According to national polls, Democrats are in significant trouble for the upcoming November elections and may lose a majority in both houses of Congress. The timing of the indictment, which comes over two-and-a-half years after the alleged lies, seems too convenient. Trial, which originally was scheduled for November 2010 before Clemens’ attorneys successfully moved last week to postpone it until April 2011, would have turned some measure of voter attention away from the issues that will dominate the elections and have given candidates free television face-time to tell constituents how strongly they support truth and justice in government. Finally, a new and overzealous head of the U.S. Attorneys Office in Washington D.C. may have had some part to play in all of this. Ronald C. Machen Jr., a longtime supporter of President Obama, was sworn into office in February 2010 and may be using the Clemens trial to increase his public profile, potentially for a future run for political office. A number of news commentators already have accused Machen of grandstanding. By example, in what arguably was a ridiculous decision, last week Machen reportedly moved to have Clemens declared a flight risk and asked the court to force Clemens to surrender his passport. Thankfully, the court declined. Further, Machen’s office has the unique responsibility of handling not only matters related to the federal government, but also local crimes that occur within D.C. Each year, his office handles about 20,000 local cases in Superior Court and about 475 in federal court. Don’t the D.C. federal prosecutors have better things to do than spend the next six to nine months putting Clemens in jail? On this point, columnist Steve Chapman wrote “It’s possible to imagine less worthy uses of prosecutorial resources, but not many.”
