Legal News

Man Behind Mitchell Report to Play Physical Buffer Today

By Dan Slater

The Law Blog would give just about anything to take our laptop and plop down between Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee today as they testify before Congress regarding McNamee’s accusation that he injected Clemens with human growth hormone. But unfortunately for us, that honor is going to Charles Scheeler, the DLA Piper lawyer who reportedly did much of the heavy lifting on the Mitchell report.

According to this article in the NYT, Scheeler (UNC Chapel Hill, Harvard Law) — a former assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland who is now Mitchell’s partner at DLA Piper — will serve as a “physical buffer” between Clemens and McNamee as they testify today before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Scheeler oversaw the process of gathering the evidence that was used to name players for their connections to performance-enhancing drugs during a 20-month investigation that led to Mitchell’s 409-page report. Scheeler, who is also a certified public accountant, will answer questions from the committee regarding the methodology used for the investigation.

“All the evidence, who to name, why to name them, all that stuff fell under Charlie,” said a lawyer “familar with the inner workings” of the Mitchell investigation. “Charlie was the one that dealt with most of the witnesses and dealt with the federal authorities.”

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, told the NYT: If Clemens says one thing at the hearing and McNamee another, “the Congressman can turn to [Scheeler] and ask about how the report was conducted. Either way, he’ll be in the middle of it all.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 13, 2008 (boomark / email).