Academic

McGwire looks smarter than Clemens

By Tung Yin

Now that former baseball star Roger Clemens has been indicted for obstruction of justice, false statements, and perjury for allegedly lying about steroid and HGH use during testimony before Congress, it looks like former slugger Mark McGwire was much smarter.  McGwire also testified before Congress and was mocked for his evasive and non-responsive testimony, which basically sounded like, "I'm not here to talk about the past, just the future" to every question posed to him about whether he had used steroids.

Non-responsive?  Yes.

False and perjurious?  Not all.  Not even close enough to need reliance on the "literal truth" defense.

Of course, Clemens is presumed innocent at this point in the eyes of the law, but section 1001 (false statements) is a pretty easy statute for the government to get convictions under.  Heck, even the hold-out juror in the Rod Blago case voted to convict him of the 1001 offense.  Other prominent celebrities who've been busted under 1001 include Martha Stewart, Scooter Libby, Marian Jones, and john McTiernan.

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on August 19, 2010 (boomark / email).