WWW- Roger Clemens’ lawyer Rusty Hardin, speaking for Clemens, denied that his client’s long-term relationship with country singer Mindy McCready involved sex.

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But Hardin also emphasized that an affair would be irrelevant to the defamation suit his client has filed against Brian McNamee, the trainer who accused Clemens of using steroids and human growth hormone.

“I think it’s totally irrelevant to the issue of whether Brian McNamee is telling the truth about Roger using human growth hormone and steroids,” said Hardin. “The character trait that you put in issue should be the character trait that the defamatory statement was made about.”

Hardin filed the civil suit against McNamee on Jan. 6 in Texas, part of a campaign to exonerate his client at a time when other ballplayers named in the Mitchell Report had acknowledged guilt and moved on.

The suit claimed that 15 of McNamee’s allegations in the report had “injured Clemens’ reputation and exposed him to public hatred, contempt, ridicule and financial injury.”

Richard Emery, a Manhattan-based First Amendment specialist brought onto McNamee’s legal team, told the Daily News that he would seek to depose McCready, in part because a habit of infidelity would undermine whatever claims Clemens had to an undamaged reputation.

“He brought it on by putting his reputation at issue,” Emery told The News. “He can’t cabin off his reputation with respect to the use of steroids from the rest of his reputation. If he has a reputation as a cheater, liar, philanderer, his damages are lessened.”