BALCO legacy stymied Mitchell

Gene Robinson is as close to a liberal race-baiter as you'll find in the Post's opinion section.

 

There is a good reason they were never hauled before a grand jury. The Feds didn't have anything near the evidence on Brian McNamee they had on BALCO, and McNamee saved them from having to try to indict him by being honest about what he did and what he knew. What a fucking novel idea. When he knew he was caught red-handed, he was faced with an indictment or telling what he knew. He chose the latter. Victor Conte, on the other hand, figured he could outsmart the Feds. This forced the Feds to seek an indictment, instead of just pleading the thing (they had way more evidence on him than they had on McNamee, so Conte was never going to get an entirely free pass), and in the course of seeking that indictment they had to call witnesses before that grand jury. The Feds offered Bonds immunity. He could have told the truth and gotten on with his life (albeit disgraced in a baseball sense). Now they are alleging he lied. As you point out, ask for immunity and lie anyhow and the indictments start flying. This would be true whether you are Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens

McNamee just accepted responsibility--unlike Conte (favorite SF Chronicle passage from the BALCO stories: "In e-mails to The Chronicle, Conte denied being the source of THG, questioned whether it was really a banned substance and said he was the victim of jealous and hypocritical track and field coaches.") The fact that McNamee didn't force them through the drudgery of convening a grand jury and gathering evidence in a case against him, saved Clemens and Pettitte trips to a grand jury room. He was a better friend to the guys he sold drugs to than Victor Conte was, apparently.

 

True. But the Feds need probable cause to indict someone. So even though the law isn't always applied evenly, the lesson to me is, don't break the law and you have nothing to worry about from the Feds.

 

Please don't speak for me if that is what you are going to come up with. I meant exactly what I said. If you want to sidetrack this into something unrelated about illegal searches and seizures, that is your red herring, not mine. I was talking about ACTUAL law breakers, not hypothetical fourth amendment violations.

Don't break the law if you don't want the Feds potentially crawling down your back. That was all I said. If you do break the law, don't be surprised when you end up under indictment--whether it is a stupid law in your estimation or the law isn't applied evenly across the board. You made your choice. Live with it.

EDIT: And your "probably cause on a bus load of nuns" line is your opinion. We still have a justice system that makes it extremely difficult to get a conviction against a bus load of nuns who have done nothing wrong. Victor Conte could have had his day in court. Barry Bonds has the right to his day in court. I look forward to him proving that the Feds don't have evidence of his lying under oath and all kinds of wrongdoing and frame-ups. It will definitely interest me if he is armed with such a solid defense.