WASHINGTON (AP) -Congress began its public examination of the Mitchell Report into baseball’s steroids era by calling Tuesday for the Justice Department to look into whether former AL MVP Miguel Tejada lied to committee staffers when questioned in connection to the Rafael Palmeiro perjury case in 2005.
At a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing in the same room where Palmeiro, Mark McGwire and others testified three years ago, congressmen mixed criticism of baseball and its players with praise for commissioner Bud Selig and union head Donald Fehr for progress in the sport’s drug-testing program.
Lawmakers also cautioned that they want to hear about further changes that could be on the way, including recommendations in the report by former Senate majority leader George Mitchell.
“What it tells us is damning. The illegal use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs was pervasive for more than a decade, Major League Baseball was slow and ineffective in responding to the scandal, and the use of human growth hormone has been rising,” said committee chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat.
“The Mitchell Report also makes it clear that everyone in baseball is responsible: the owners, the commissioner, the union and the players.”
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