USADA Demands Armstrong Answer to a Lettre de Cachet

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) a publicly funded entity domiciled in the United States of America, but apparently with extraterritorial rights, has written Lance Armstrong a lettre de cachet; and has demanded a written confession as to the charges contained therein by June 22, 2012.

Lettres de cachet were used during the ancien regime of France to arrest and detain people without trial. Lettres de cachet were signed by the King, countersigned by the Secretary of State, and stamped with the signet seal of the King.  Lettres de cachet soon became a weapon used by Peers of France in the King's favor to remove personal or political enemies without just cause.  The Marquise de Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, not for overt crimes, but merely for objectionable moral turpitude.  Lettres de cachet became highly abused in an arbitrary fashion under the reign of Louis XVI.  Lettres de cachet did not contain the charges levied against a person, nor the persons responsible for the accusations of wrongdoing, nor the duration of the detention.  People of high esteem or notoriety were detained in the Bastille prison near Paris, France.

King Tygart I of USADA applied his signet ring to the lettre de cachet containing a large and varied number of amorphous charges: use of recombinant EPO, illegal blood doping methods, and masking agents during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France.  These doping methods were allegedly discovered by the International Cycling Union (UCI) comparison of out-of-competition UCI Biological Passport baseline scores with values measured during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France.  Allegedly certain values were detected in the biological values during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France that suggests EPO use or illegal blood doping techniques.  The lettre de cachet also lists a long running conspiracy that alleges use of prohibited substances by Lance Armstrong and his teammates in an systematic and organized fashion to gain an unfair competitive advantage in order to win titles and cash.  This conspiracy included  all of the cycling teams that Lance Armstrong competed with from 1998 to 2010, including U.S. Postal Service, Discovery Channel Team, Team Astana, and Team Radio Shack.

Lance Armstrong has complained that the lettre de cachet that USADA wrote does not contain the names of the riders who are to testify to the doping conspiracy charges.  USADA has refused to release the names even after repeated requests of the Armstrong defense team, and USADA claims that it is under no obligation to do so.  In this light it is impossible to understand how the Lance Armstrong defense team is to respond in a coherent and comprehensive fashion to the lettre de cachet.  But Lance Armstrong must respond or be charged by USADA with obstruction of justice.

There is more bad news that could give us a hint as to this witness list may be because George Hincapie, Christian Vande Velde, David Zabriskie, and Levi Leipheimer, all sent USA Cycling Corporate Executive Officer Steve Johnson e-mail requests to be taken out of the potential pool of participants for the 2012 London Olympic games.  Hincapie, Zabriskie, Leipheimer, and Vande Velde were also former U.S. Postal Lance Armstrong lieutenants and may be called to testify if the anti-doping review board decides to press formal charges.  According to Juliet Macur of the New York Times Hincapie has already admitted to using performance enhancing drugs and involvement in the alleged conspiracy.

King Tygart I has a good incentive for the prosecution witnesses to testify on behalf of USADA, a sweetheart deal of shortened duration of suspensions for cooperation with the government, but  cavaeat emptor. Why? What possibly could go wrong with the deal?  Well for one thing USADA has the habit of expanding power and lowering the bar of proof that the prosecution has to abide by.  First, an athlete had to fail a drug test.  Then, there emerged the "non analytical positive" or evidence derived from testimony of teammates, coaches, or others who witnessed the defendant using performance enhancing substances, methods or markers, etc, next emerged the UCI Biological Passport, and deviations in biological parameters that could be construed as consistent with doping.  The deviations from the baseline scores are suspicious and only require and up or down vote by a committee of experts to constitute threshold for doping.  The Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) has concluded that the judgment of the committee can be used as a bases for an adverse analytical finding (AAF) even in the absence of a conclusive positive test for a prohibited performance enhancing drug.  Thus even though Lance Armstrong did not test positive for a performance enhancing drug during the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France he could still possibly be charged with an adverse analytical finding.  USADA can claim that Lance Armstrong and his doctors employed masking agents or other medical methods that defeated the testing, but that the residual trends and tendencies of his biological profile indicate doping, in spite of the success in defeating the laboratory test.  There is no defense an athlete could formulate that would prevail against a methods to defeat the testing logic.  But there is worse news, King Tygart I wants to suspend the time limit for the statute of limitations of eight years because of the infamous nature of the Lance Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel alleged conspiracy to traffic dope to innocent teammates at the point of a gun, but beware all of you prosecution witnesses who admit to doping in the past, the waiver of the time limit may also apply to you. You may find yourselves deluded by the USADA sweetheart deal of partial immunity against prosecution and suspension and then suddenly find yourselves served with a lettre de cachet that deals with other years and other episodes that are not contained in your immunity agreement.  Remember, King Tygart I is trying to eliminate the statute of limitations altogether to remove another prosecution obstacle, and if he succeeds, he may still ban you from cycling forever in spite of your protests of USADA reneging.  Remember, USADA changes the rules at half time to ensure a USADA victory and a defeat for the defendant, and the goal of USADA is an ever expanding foundation of prosecutorial power, and a ever expanding horizon of arbitrary unfairness and injustice of the arbitration process.  So you better be careful willing prosecution witnesses that King Tygart I does not depose you too.  Geroge Hincapie announced that this is his last year and he will retire, but the rest of you should think about your future in cycling, because you may be missing more that merely the 2012 Olympic Games!

Last thought.  If there was a organized doping ring going on at Astana when Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel were with Astana, where are the biological deviations in the 2009 Tour de France biological tests from the out-of-competition UCI Biological Passport baseline scores for Alberto Contador, the man who won the 2009 Tour de France?  Does it not reason that Alberto Contador would have similar biological deviations if both riders were using the same drugs?  Is it logical to conclude that a clean Alberto Contador beat a doped Lance Armstrong who finished the race in third place on the podium?  USADA can't order an examination of Alberto Contador but the UCI or WADA can.  It is impossible to understand that with Alberto Contador's links to Operation Puerto , after the clenbuterol positive test, after the suspension and revocation of his 2010 Tour de France title, that the UCI and WADA still insist on protecting Alberto Contador.  Let's see his baseline and 2009 Tour de France test scores and compare them side by side with Lance Armstrong.  Then King Tygart I could be regarded as the indefatigable, untouchable, doping anti-crusader who deposed two doper cycling kings with a single dagger thrust!

Oh and by the way did not Alberto Contador get caught using performance enhancing drugs after Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel had left Astana and were working for Team Radio Shack?  Curious coincidence don't you think, but consistent with the Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Roberto Heras syndrome:  a man is promoted to team leader and starts to earn the big money, the positive drug tests, suspensions, and revocation of titles are soon to follow.  There may be organized, systematic doping going on here, but you can't blame Armstrong and Bryneel for that.