WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Federal Bureau of Investigation, prompted by Congress, said Thursday that they would investigate whether star baseball pitcher Roger Clemens lied under oath when he denied using performance enhancing drugs.
Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award-winner, testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on February 13 that he never took steroids or human growth hormone.
But former trainer Brian McNamee told the committee that he personally injected Clemens with steroids and HGH many times between 1998 and 2001.
The wide contradiction in their testimony prompted committee chairman Henry Waxman to ask the US Justice Department to investigate.
"The request to open an investigation into the congressional testimony of Roger Clemens has been turned over to the FBI and will receive appropriate investigative action by the FBI's Washington Field Office," FBI spokeswoman Debra Weierman said.
Clemens' lawyer Rusty Hardin said the FBI's investigation did not come as a surprise.
"We've always expected they would open an investigation," Hardin said. "They attended the congressional hearing. So what's new?"
Clemens was initially linked to performance-enhancing drugs in the Mitchell Report on December 13.
McNamee told former US senator George Mitchell that he injected Clemens with steroids 16 times over several years, the blockbuster revelation of Mitchell's report on baseball doping released in December.
McNamee changed some of the details of his story before the congressional committee, saying that the number of injections he gave Clemens were "greater than I initially stated".
Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch, both former teammates of Clemens, were also named in the Mitchell report based on information from McNamee and both have acknowledged using HGH.
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