Baseball player Roger Clemens is being advised to address his grievances towards the prosecutors and not towards Brian McNamee who had been his long time trainer. According to McNamee’s lawyers, the trainer shouldn’t be blamed for being coerced to reveal that he had injected Clemens’ with steroids to the investigators of Sen. George Mitchell, who later published a report that named several baseball players to be linked to steroids. This motion was filed at the Texas federal court in response to the Rusty Hardin’s appeal that the court presided by US District Judge Keith Ellison should re evaluate their dismissal of the slander lawsuit filed by Clemens against McNamee.

From The Daily News:

“The thrust of our response is that Clemens is trying to blame Brian for what he is angry at the government prosecutors for doing - that is, compelling Brian to talk to them and tell the truth,” said Richard Emery, one of McNamee’s attorneys. “That’s no basis for taking away Brian’s immunity. The prosecutors compelled him to talk and it was not Brian’s fault that they then made it public through the Mitchell Report. They (Clemens and his lawyers) are pointing their fingers at the wrong person.”

Hardin has argued in court filings that McNamee should not be protected with absolute immunity. Hardin pointed out that Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Parrella, who had led much of the BALCO prosecution, argued in the case of Tammy Thomas, the cyclist convicted of perjury last year, that the purpose of the government’s steroid probe was to nail distributors, not athletes or users. McNamee’s statements to Mitchell about Clemens’ alleged steroid use play no role in exposing and prosecuting drug distribution rings, Hardin argued.

In a counter argument, McNamee’s lawyers contend that it was not his intention to ruin the reputation of Clemens, but he was merely telling the truth that he had a hand at the baseball player’s steroid use.

Posted in Steroids