Throughout the entire process, Issa is one of the few Congressmen who has remained levelheaded and kept the grandstanding to a minimum.  In fact, Issa on ESPN1050 with Michael Kay yesterday said that he "was the only member of the Oversight Committee to sit through the entire 5 hours of Roger Clemens' deposition. Issa notes his committee is not well funded and can only afford about 61 meetings a year to oversee a fraction of government wrong doings and has logged 6 of those meetings now about an individual in baseball. Issa finds this a meaningless use of their limited resources and notes it stemmed from a baseball player differing with Mitchell. Issa predicts no big fireworks from tomorrow's (today's) meetings."

Issa also seemed to defend Clemens against his former trainer, Brian McNamee, by citing, of all people who are credible on the issue of steroids, Jose Canseco.

Canseco continued: "I have played on three teams with Roger Clemens and I have no reason to believe that he has ever used steroids, human growth hormone, or any other performance enhancing drugs."

Canseco also said in the affidavit that Clemens did not appear at a 1998 party at his house. The party could be crucial to the dispute between Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee. According to the Mitchell Report, the party was where the pitcher first embraced performance-enhancing drug use.

At the time, Canseco and Clemens were teammates on the Toronto Blue Jays. Clemens' legal team has sought to portray the party as an indication that McNamee is either lying or mistaken in his testimony about the pitcher's drug use and at least one member of the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.), has said he believes it undermines the Mitchell Report.

"The Mitchell Report was sloppy as to the specifics of whether or not Roger Clemens was at a party that is pivotal to the theory that his drug use began there," said Issa. "I think it's sort of a given now that, in fact, he wasn't at the party. So you sort of have the foundation for a house that isn't there anymore."

But despite the sloppy report and the fact that the Democratic majority that scheduled this circus has spent too much time, money and effort on this, Issa still expects the committee to pass the whole matter over to the Justice Department.

Congressman: Roger Clemens' mess will be passed to Justice Department
BY MICHAEL O'KEEFFE, TERI THOMPSON, CHRISTIAN RED and NATHANIEL VINTON
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERS

Sunday, February 10th 2008, 4:00 AM

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the only member of the House Oversight Committee known to have personally attended Roger Clemens' five-hour deposition on Tuesday, told the Daily News on Friday that he expects the committee to pass the whole matter over to the Justice Department.

"I'm convinced that we will," Issa said when asked if the committee would hand up a criminal referral at the end of the explosive congressional investigation. "I'm predicting that now. I hope I'm wrong."

Just two buildings over from Issa's office, another congressman was calling for the committee to gather more information before handing anything over to the Justice Department.

"I think it depends on how the hearing goes," said Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), who met with Clemens informally on Friday. "I think it depends on what happens with (Brian) McNamee. Anytime you have a person that has some serious credibility problems, sometimes you're just sort of like, 'This is not worth it.' Even prosecutors do that - they walk away because of the fact the witness is not credible."

A criminal referral would mean that a United States attorney or the FBI would vigorously investigate certain baseball players for perjury, as the agencies did in the cases of Barry Bonds and Miguel Tejada, taking the matter out of the hands of Congress.

If that happens, the legal battle between Clemens and McNamee, the former trainer who has accused him of using performance-enhancing drugs, would extend far into the future rather than end on the eve of spring training.

Issa, who attended about half of Clemens' deposition on Tuesday, said it was clear to him that the committee's attorneys have not averted the circus they hoped to prevent by delaying the public hearing from the original Jan. 16 date. By interviewing the various parties under oath, and seemingly establishing the truth prior to any public hearing, the committee hoped to get to the bottom of Clemens' denunciations of McNamee's claims in the Mitchell Report.

Instead, a very public and unseemly war has broken out, with stakes as high as five-year prison terms (the maximum penalty for lying to Congress).

"Now we're going to have one person on a panel along with cross-accusers, and they're going to be doing a he-says, he-says," said Issa, who is dismayed that the committee got involved in the first place. "I see this as two freight trains on the same track, headed to each other. You don't need a public hearing for this..."

....But Issa, who represents a district in the San Diego area, thinks it's time for his committee to wash its hands of the baseball mess.

"A tremendous amount of public resources have been allocated for this," said Issa, estimating that the baseball inquiry represents about 25% of the committee's time and energy. "We're not supposed to be a criminal investigation entity. We don't really have a mandate to be looking at this."

Still, how often do you get a Hall-of-Fame pitcher in front of you to ask anything you want under oath? Who can blame Darrell for getting one question in as a fan and not a Congressman?

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): I'd like to refocus this hearing back to more of a discussion on steroid usage in baseball as elaborated in the Mitchell Report, the BALCO investigation and written about by Jose Canseco. From these and other sources we know that allegations of steroid usage have surfaced regarding such well-known players as Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds. My question to you, is which one of those players would you least like to face in game 7 of the World Series with your team up by 1 with bases loaded and 2 outs?

Roger Clemens: Wow! You're not pulling any punches today, Mr. Congressman. I would have to say Barry Bonds for the reason that his ability to homer off more types of pitches and in more locations is a bit greater than that of the other two.