Associated Press
Now that Roger Clemens has moved closer to jail and even further away from the Hall of Fame after having been indicted for perjury for denying he ever used performance-enhancing drugs during congressional testimony, it should be noted that he isn’t the only professional baseball player accused of lying to Congress.
In March, 2005, Baltimore Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro stood before a congressional committee and stated unequivocally: “I have never used steroids. Period. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that.’’
His testimony was so convincing that even President George W. Bush and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass) were impressed with the sincerity of his innocence, having believed Palmeiro never used performance-enhancing drugs.
Five months later, Palmeiro was suspended for 10 days for using steroids. When the question came up whether to charge the first baseman for lying to Congress, the House committee handling the steroids investigation cited lack of sufficient evidence and claimed the evidence they gathered was ``confusing and contradictory in many respects.”
So the indictment charging Clemens with perjury in lying to Congress appears to be rare. According to P.J. Meitl in a 2007 Quinnipiac Law Review, ``only six people have been convicted of perjury or related charges in relation to Congress in the last sixty years.’’
If convicted, the ``Rocket Man’ faces up to 30 years in prison, but under sentencing guidelines it could be reduced to 15-21 months.
The embattled pitcher can also take solace in knowing some individuals who have been convicted of lying to Congress, avoided prison time by challenging parts of their crime, such as Admiral John Poindexter, President Reagan’s National Security Advisor, who was convicted of making false testimony to Congress involving his role with the Iran-Contra affair, but was able to get his obstruction charge overturned on grounds the term ``corruptly’’ was unconstitutionally vague and avoid jail time.
And Clemens, of course, if convicted, could be spared jail time if the President of the United States chooses to pardon the eleven time All-Star pitcher. In 1992, President H.W. Bush pardoned five former Reagan officials involving perjury crimes and making false statements relating to the Iran-Contra affair, including Elliott Abrams, Robert McFarlane, former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and CIA employee Duane Clarridge,
Ever since 1927, when the U.S. Supreme Court (in McGrain v Daugherty) directly authorized Congress to conduct investigations, the lower body has been given the authority to call forth witnesses , experts and government officials about important matters, including the use of subpoena powers to gather relevant materials and force witnesses to come forward to answer questions.
What follows are names of individuals who were convicted of lying to Congress.
• September 26, 1956: Harvey Matusow was sentenced to five years in prison for perjury after admitting in his book ''False Witness'' that his testimony before Congress in which he named more than 200 people as Communist or Communist sympathizer was nothing but a pack of lies.
• January 1, 1975: Former White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, along with former Attorney General John Mitchell, both who served under Richard M. Nixon were convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury stemming from testimony before the Senate Select Committee in the cover up of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters.
• January 9, 1984: Rita M. Lavelle, former chief of the Environmental Protection Agency's toxic waste programs, was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $10,000 for lying to a Congressional investigative subcommittees surrounding the extent of her knowledge about her former employer (Aerojet General Corporation) disposing of toxic wastes at the Stringfellow Acid Pits near Riverside, Calif.
• October 26, 1993: Deborah Gore Dean, an executive assistant at the Department of Housing and Urban Development was convicted of 12 felony counts, including steering HUD contracts to favored developers, lying to Congress and taking bribes
• October 18, 1994: Jerry Weissman, the Chief Financial Officer of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on charges he lied to a Senate subcommittee and obstructed its investigation of financial regularities at the company. On March 4, 1997, Weismann was convicted of concealing $80 million in losses his company had suffered under his reign.
-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
Source: ``The Perjury Paradox: The Amazing Under-Enforcement of the Laws Regarding Lying to Congress'' By P.J. Meitl, Quinnipiac Law Review, 2007; The New York Times Historical Archives
Comments