It’s not an economic story, except in the broadest sense that sports and entertainment are big parts of the U.S. economy.
Stilll, the potential lesson in the case of Roger Clemens, the former top-notch major legue baseball pitcher, resonates throughout the business and financial worlds.
That lesson is (assuming the perjury charges filed against Clemens hold up) that the questionable act is usually not what gets people in the biggest trouble, it’s the attempt to cover up that act.
Clemens was indicted today, charged with making false statements to Congress when he declared under oath he never used performance-enhancing drugs.
“Prosecutors and the FBI have been gathering evidence in the steroids probe since Mr. Clemens testified before a House committee in 2008,” The Wall Street Journal reported. The Journal also reported Clemens’s lawyer wasn’t immediately available to comment.
It wasn’ t a legal matter like this, but allegations of a certain type of cover up are what reportedly prompted the Hewlett-Packard board just recently to push out Chief Executive Mark Hurd. There was the Martha Stewart case, and on and on.
But no one seems to get the message.
August 20, 2010
You miss two important points:
(1) The Feds launch a barrage of allegations with maximum publicity; then they end up convicting on one (relatively small) charge (the lying);
(2) Federal agents can lie to us, but it is illegal to lie to them; talk about a double standard.
Bottom line, we are learning not to talk to federal agents, even if we have nothing to hide.
Yes, we are slowly getting the message.