Lance Armstrong's deposition testimony made public
Filings include transcripts from previous questioning
Federal investigators are asking for further depositions of Lance Armstrong, in part because of his attorney’s “repeated interruptions,” in part due to his apparently unsatisfactory answers, according to USA Today. In support of their case, the investigators included portions of the transcript from the first deposition, giving a look into Armstrong’s state of mind, and his counsel’s actions.
“More than once during the first seven hours of his deposition, Armstrong sought to minimize or explain away his most incriminating prior statements,” the court filing said, according to usatoday.com.
For example, when asked if he was writing a book, Armstrong answered, “I’m not. I mean, I am, but I’m not … I mean I’m writing one right now. I mean, how can you not include this content in a book?”
At one point during the seven-hour session on July 23, exchanges between the attorneys became so heated that even Armstrong seemed to tire of it, asking “Can’t we all just get along?”
In the transcipt, he stated that he first started doping in "Most likely 1993,” with the product being Synacthen.
Armstrong also reiterated his “never tested positive” stance. “To me it means what it means, that I had never been positive. Whether there was – to me, TUEs don’t fall under that. Suspicious samples that may or may not have been announced don’t fall under that. Even the cortisone incident or the episode in 1999 didn’t fall under that, because technically that wasn’t a positive sense.”
Even he admits, however, that “this was semantics.”
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Armstrong’s counsel Elliot Peters at one point objected to a question, saying “ “I’m instructing him not to answer, because you’re just harassing him at this point,” Peters said. Moments later, he said Armstrong could answer the question.
The former cyclist did not always follow his counsel’s instructions. For example,when asked if sponsors wanted to use the story of Armstrong as a clean rider to sell their products, he answered, “Yeah. Trek did, Nike did. Giro did. Oakley did.” But when asked if the USPS did, Peters said, “Objection. “Lacks foundation.” However, Armstrong answered: “Yeah, they did.”