House agrees to aid prosecutors in Roger Clemens perjury trial

The House voted on Friday to help government attorneys prosecuting seven-time Cy Young award-winning pitcher Roger Clemens for lying before Congress about steroid use, by instructing the House Clerk to give those lawyers access to an audio tape of Clemens’ 2008 testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The Clemens perjury trial is scheduled to start again in mid-April, and in preparation for that date, U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen today asked the House for a copy of Clemens’s on-the-record testimony before the committee. In that hearing, Clemens testified that he had not used any banned substances, while his former trainer said at the same hearing that Clemens was in fact using those substances.

{mosads}Under House rules, the backup tape cannot be provided unless the House votes to provide it, which prompted the need for a resolution. House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) presented the resolution on the House floor at about noon Friday, and it was quickly approved by voice vote with few other members on the floor.

The resolution outlines Clemens’ testimony from 2008, which, it says, raised “significant questions about Mr. Clemens’ truthfulness.”

It concludes by saying that offering a copy of the audio backup file from the 2008 hearing for use at trial, “would promote the ends of justice in a manner consistent with the privileges and rights of the House.” It then directs the Clerk of the House to provide the audio file to Machen.

After being indicted in 2010 for perjury and making false statements, Clemens’s trial began last fall. But a mistrial was quickly declared after the prosecution showed inadmissible evidence to jurors. That evidence consisted of another hearing in which Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) discussed now-retired New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, a former teammate of Clemens who has testified before that Clemens had used steroids.