The acquittal of Roger Clemens is bittersweet to me.
It is sweet because it is the right outcome — the “evidence” and the witnesses in the Clemens case were abysmal.
It is bitter because the evidence and witnesses in most of the Enron cases were even more ridiculous, and yet we saw no similar sense of outrage from the press and public.
Let me give you a few examples from the Enron Broadband Services (EBS) case (which is fresh on my mind right now because I am doing some research on the case). In the EBS case, there was zero tangible evidence — the lead federal prosecutor, John Kroger, admitted this in his autobiography — Kroger says that because there was no actual evidence of wrongdoing at EBS, he tried to build his case by finding “witnesses” he could get to “cooperate” with him. And most of the “witnesses” he shanghaied were known liars. The prosecution’s first witness, Shawna Meyer, actually recanted the key portions of her testimony at a civil deposition which occurred only a month after the EBS criminal trial. Bill Collins, the witness whom Kroger says he used to build the EBS case, was caught lying on the stand — as was another key prosecution witness, John Bloomer. And one of the defense witnesses, Larry Ciscon, actually testified that he had been threatened by the federal prosecutors in an attempt to prevent him from testifying.
Think of the outrage from the press and public that would have occurred had the Feds pulled those stunts on Roger Clemens. But, in the EBS case, the press let this misconduct pass. And the public has shown little curiosity in even understanding the misconduct in the Enron cases, much less doing anything about it.
So when I hear comments from people applauding the Clemens victory, I wonder where they were when the Enron witch hunt was in progress. Chances are these same people were cheering the Feds on in the Enron abuse. And the subsequent prosecutorial misconduct and over-reaching we have seen in the Clemens case and others was encouraged by the people who supported the Enron witch hunt — it emboldened the Feds to believe that they could get away with anything.
So I say to the Enron bashers: Hurray for supporting justice in the Clemens case, and shame on you for not supporting it in the Enron cases.
I see a lot of people who are not willing to admit that Clemens is innocent. I see news and sports commentators say he will not get into the Hall of Fame because he “juiced” or whatever BS they say. The concept of innocent until proven guilty did not apply in the Enron cases or the Clemens case. It is more egregious that the public and press say you are guilty after being found innocent by trial. How people can justify this type of behavior is appalling.
People who refuse to look at the facts or even study the facts and then make judgements on others based on the lies of the media and the DOJ witnesses are guilty of empowering abuse by the DOJ. They should be careful because the way the system is going now, it could be that some day in the future one of their family members might be falsely accused. Then what are they going to do?