Ken Davidoff
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Blog: Baseball Insider
WASHINGTON — If Rusty Hardin were a baseball manager, he’d be Bobby Cox.
Roger Clemens’ attorney possesses a seemingly boundless reserve of energy, protects his client at all times, annoys the hell out of the opposition and makes the umpire — District Judge Reggie Walton, in this instance — work very hard.
Yet you needn’t vigorously examine Hardin to see he also has in him a little bit of Cox’s nemesis, Bobby Valentine. Hardin appears to find comfort in chaos, and he holds no qualms about throwing a cherry bomb, figuratively speaking, into a crowded area.
Yesterday, as USA v. Clemens kicked off its third week in plodding fashion, Hardin went hard on an always-emotional and explosive notion. One that will be critical to his defense:
Congress-hating.
Noting Clemens was just “one out of the 89 people” identified by the infamous 2007 Mitchell Report as a user of illegal performance-enhancing drugs, Hardin said the government wanted to “punish the man who had the temerity to continue to publicly deny he committed a crime” by publicly humiliating him with a “show trial” and setting him up for the current trial, in which Clemens faces 15 counts of obstructing Congress, perjury and making a false statement.
The memorable Feb. 13, 2008 hearing by the House Oversight Committee, pitting Clemens against his accuser, Brian McNamee, was held only for public-relations purposes, Hardin said, as he cross-examined the trial’s first witness, Phil Barnett — who was that committee’s chief of staff at the time.
It was a tense, busy afternoon in the courtroom. The U.S. Attorney’s office constantly objected to Hardin’s line of questioning, and Barnett had his own attorney, William Pittard, who bore a striking resemblance to Kramer’s intern from “Seinfeld” and offered a fair number of objections himself.
Barnett, who still has another half-day to go, looked exhausted by day’s end.
In one awkward exchange, Hardin picked on the fact the Committee asked Clemens, in a Feb. 5, 2008 deposition, whether he discussed HGH usage with McNamee.
“What legitimate legislative purpose” could be behind such a question? Hardin asked. Barnett said it tied into whether Mitchell’s report was accurate, and it was the House Committee had first strongly suggested to Baseball commissioner Bud Selig that he needed to conduct an internal, independent investigation.
The government attorneys argued if Hardin were going to challenge every question asked of Clemens, then it had the right to show a bigger picture, bringing in other players (like former Yankees Chuck Knoblauch and Mike Stanton) to talk about their illegal PED usage.
So this was a strategic risk by Hardin. He doesn’t seem scared, though. He was having too much fun getting in everyone’s grill. Planting the seeds, he surely hopes, that the jury sees the Clemens matter as a case of Congress poking its nose where it doesn’t belong.
Other stuff you should know:
* In response to a government filing last week concerning McNamee’s uneven past, Clemens’ attorneys filed a memo alleging McNamee has a past that “contains more dirt than a pitcher’s mound,” and that such “prior bad acts” should be in play in their attempt to discredit McNamee.
* Clemens’ attorneys argued the jury should hear audio of Clemens’ 2008 deposition, rather than have someone else read it, yet that seemed to backfire yesterday. The prosecution played snippets of the deposition in which Clemens backtracked and jumped all over the place in discussing the injections he received from McNamee — Clemens says they were B12 and lidocaine, McNamee says they were steroids and HGH — and the incident in which McNamee injected Clemens’ wife, Debbie, with HGH. Clemens sounded profoundly unconvincing.
* Once Barnett wraps up today, the next government witness will be Major League Baseball Players Association special counsel Steve Fehr, the brother of former union executive director Don Fehr. Steve Fehr will testify the union alerted Clemens’ representatives that Mitchell wanted to speak with him; Clemens has repeatedly asserted that he had no idea of Mitchell’s interest in a meeting.
kdavidoff@nypost.com
Rusty Hardin, Hardin, Phil Barnett, Brian McNamee, District Judge Reggie Walton, Congress
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