The producers of 60 Minutes couldn’t have asked for a better buildup to Sunday’s scheduled broadcast of an interview with baseball’s Roger Clemens about allegations that he used illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
The stakes in that interview, already high, have been raised by the lawyer for Clemens’ chief accuser and former trainer, Brian McNamee.
He’s said that if Clemens, who has denied using the drugs, calls McNamee a liar in the interview, he’ll sue for libel.
“If Roger Clemens continues to play fast and loose with the truth on 60 Minutes and he continues to call Brian McNamee a liar then we will proceed with a defamation suit,” Richard D. Emery told The New York Times. “It is one of the only avenues Brian has to defend himself against the claims that he lied.”
Clemens’s lawyer, in turn, told the Times that he would love a chance to take on McNamee in court and that his client will speak his mind in the interview. “I believe a client who’s telling the truth should tell the world the truth,” said Rusty Hardin, a Houston attorney.
Mike Wallace, the interviewer for 60 Minutes, told the Times today that Clemens denied that McNamee had given him injections of performance enhancing drugs, as McNamee claimed.
However, in a later story today, CBS News also told the Times that Clemens did say that that McNamee gave him injections of Vitamin B-12 and lidocaine, the painkiller. But Wallace said that Clemens swore he didn’t take performance enhancing drugs.
The war of words before the broadcast of the interview has added a new element to the controversy that began last month with the issuance of a report on the illegal use steroids and other performance enhancing drugs in baseball.
Compiled by George J. Mitchell, the former senator from Maine, the report included Clemens as one of almost 90 baseball players who used the drugs.
McNamee told Mitchell and federal authorities that he injected Clemens first with steroids and later with human growth hormones, starting with the steroids in the late 1990s.
Under a deal arrangement with federal authorities, McNamee faced prosecution if he did not tell the truth to them.
Regardless of whether he told the truth to Mitchell, winning a libel suit against Clemens or anyone else would not be easy. First, McNamee would have to prove he is not a liar, that he told Mitchell the truth about Clemens. To do this, he might have to summon up more substantiation than is included in the Mitchell proof.
The report shows cancelled checks for steroids written to McNamee by other players, but none from Clemens. The report also states that all money paid to Clemens by McNamee was, at least on paper, for his services as a personal trainer. “Clemens never gave money specifically to McNamee to buy performance enhancing drugs,” the report states.
It also makes no mention of witnesses to the alleged injections.
In a libel suit, McNamee would also have to prove that Clemens damaged his reputation by calling him a liar. A lawyer for Clemens might argue that McNamee has very little reputation to damage, as he’s an admitted supplier of illegal drugs.
The question of McNamee suing raises another question: Why doesn’t Clemens sue McNamee and/or Mitchell and Major League Baseball for saying he used performance-enhancing drugs?
Clemens could certainly prove that his reputation has been damaged, as the allegations about steroid use have raised questions about his admittance to baseball’s Hall of Fame. This honor was considered automatic before the Mitchell report.
Should he sue, Clemens would first have to prove that McNamee’s statements were false. And as a public figure, he would also have to prove that Mitchell or Major League Baseball acted irresponsibly in making those statements public.
No player named in the report has suggested legal action. And one of the players, Andy Pettitte of the New York Yankees, has acknowledged that he received human growth hormone from McNamee in 2002 as the report stated.
His admission could give support to McNamee’s claim that he told Mitchell the truth about other players.
Unclear in all of this is what, if any, exposure CBS News or 60 Minutes might have if McNamee decide to file a libel suit.
Depending upon the editing of the interview, it would seem that Clemens will at least come close in the broadcast to calling McNamee a liar by saying he didn’t receive any steroid or human growth hormone injections from his former trainer.
News policy would suggest that CBS go to McNamee for a response to that statement.
In the end, there could be a kind of “he said/he said” between the baseball player and his former trainer. Clemens could say he thought he was getting B-12 and lidocaine injections. McNamee could say Clemens knew he was getting steroids.
Should a libel suit be filed against it, CBS would have to show that it took care to find out whether the statements made were true.
Emery, McNamee’s lawyer, has not mentioned any interest in suing CBS or any other media outlet.
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1 Comments
#1. Nascar 01.03.2008
This is solid sports drama taken to a whole new level. McNamee stands to lose more if he lied under oath and would face federal prosecution. He has to tell the truth.
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