The FBI announced on Thursday that it had opened a criminal investigation into whether Roger Clemens lied under oath as part of a congressional investigation into his challenge to the Mitchell report.
The FBI's Washington field office said it had begun looking at statements Clemens made before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which held a hearing Feb. 13 about his suspected use of steroids and human growth hormone. In Clemens' private deposition and in public testimony, he denied ever using the substances.
"The alleged incident happened on the grounds of the United States Capitol in the District of Washington and, as a rule, if there are any improper actions in Washington, our office looks into the matter," Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the Washington field office, said.
On Wednesday, the committee chairman, Henry Waxman and the ranking minority member, Tom Davis sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey requesting that federal authorities investigate Clemens' statements. Weierman said the attorney general's office in Washington contacted the field office on Thursday to open the investigation.
"We've always expected they would open an investigation," said Rusty Hardin, a lawyer for Clemens.
Clemens is the second baseball player to be referred for a criminal investigation this year. In January, Waxman and Davis referred Houston Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada on suspicion of making false statements to congressional investigators about his possible use of performance-enhancing drugs.
According to a lawyer familiar with the matter, officials at the Justice Department are interested in keeping the case in Washington, although the federal government's major steroid cases have been led by prosecutors at the US attorney's office in the Northern District of California.
"The Justice Department has the discretion regarding whether or not a grand jury would be convened in San Francisco or Washington, DC," Mathew Rosengart, an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University Law School and a former federal prosecutor, said.
"The focus of the investigation right now is in Washington because that is where the alleged crimes have occurred, but the federal authorities who have prosecuted these types of cases are in Northern California," he said.
It was Jeff Novitzky, a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and prosecutors in the US attorney's office in the Northern District of California who entered into a proffer agreement with Clemens' former trainer Brian McNamee.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
RSS