Partisanship Around Clemens Testimony Continues

When Roger Clemens testified before Congress in February, the inquiry into his alleged steroid use became a bizarrely partisan affair.  Democrats swung away at the baseball great, while Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee generally defended him.

The pattern continued today, with the release of a 109-page report from committee Republicans that rejects many of the Democrats' charges. "The evidence does not support the Democrats' conclusion that Clemens made 'seven sets of assertions'  that are contradicted by the evidence or are implausible," the report says.

Ranking minority member Tom Davis of Virginia joined Chairman Henry Waxman of California last month in sending a letter to the attorney general asking him to investigate whether Clemens committed perjury when he testified before the committee.  But the new minority report says that "only the core question of whether Clemens testified falsely about his use of steroids and HGH needs to be examined.”

For instance, the report doesn’t necessarily buy the Democratic argument that Clemens may have lied about receiving B-12 shots because they didn’t appear in the medical record. “The testimony shows B-12 injections were not always recorded in the player’s medical file,” finds the report. “For example, Yankees trainer Gene Monahan testified the Yankees did not always keep records of B-12 injections.”