Xplora wrote:zero wrote:Basically its all an exercise in forum shopping by armstrong anyway.
And this might be completely true, but there is something DEEPLY wrong about shouting down an elected official who wants consideration of the situation where nonelected public officials have an enormous impact on the public sphere - especially when they have an evidence process (drug testing) that has uncovered nothing, just charging and convicting based on verbal testimony.
Plenty has been found. IMO ever since armstrong B-samples have been determined to contain EPO, the USADA has pretty much been duty bound to continue investigating him. (note that b-samples can't be used for a case, without the a-samples - which prevents them being used as central evidence in a case). Couldn't be a credible DA if they didn't have an open case after that, and they couldn't be a credible DA if they weren't trying to link Hamiltons statements to other credible witnesses.
Yes, that's important - but at face value, you couldn't bring the same kind of evidence to most other arenas. There needs to be a smoking gun... and when you can't prove there were any shots fired, except "I saw him fire the gun", that's a situation that deserves the attention of the US Senate/Congress.
There is a difference in legal weighting between witness (I saw), vs hearsay (he said he saw). Witness evidence is usually the largest and most important body of evidence in criminal trials. Multiple credible witnesses is routinely enough to convict for anything including murder in Texas (ie death penalty).
Let's look at the alternative scenario. The USA clearly spends an ENORMOUS amount of money on sport, and has done so for decades. Surely the body that responsible for policing that should be held accountable for their actions, as public servants? Should politicians wilfully turn a blind eye to the incredible expense and probable waste of resources pursuing a dud case, when it is possible that other juicers are not being properly pursued? Or that all the funds spent on testing is being wasted, because they aren't using the evidence anyway? Do they have an appropriate process in place for these actions against sportsmen? (We are assuming that USADA has due diligence in place, and responsible decision makers running the place).
The whole congress decided to go this route, in a completely thorough way including drafting, finalising and debating an act to create USOC, and ensure that USOC had a relevant and reasonable strategy for meeting its DA obligations. IMO the strategy is correct, the agency that does testing should not be involved in promotion or administration. Failure to do that (UCI) is how you create the Armstrong situation in the first place.