After a number of fits and starts with the interpreter for today’s testimony by LNDD employee Cynthia Mongongu, the original interpreter was replaced by another, more capable, interpreter. Perhaps the first person was a jumble of nerves, or perhaps he just wasn’t very good, it’s hard to say.
But the second interpreter, who came in on short notice and started out by saying she was very nervous, did well enough to earn the applause of those in the hearing room. Much of Mongongu’s testimony (or perhaps all) was under questioning by one of USADA’s lawyers, so the information we’re getting from Mongongu’s testimony is pretty much what you might expect.
By her telling, everything was done according to the procedures and standards, and the results were recorded and interpreted properly. TBV has a good transcription of the questions and answers from part of Mongongu’s testimony, and Judge Hue does a good job of capturing the action, too.
Up until the very end of today’s testimony (all questions being asked by USADA’s lawyer, Team Landis get to cross-examine tomorrow), the answers seemed pretty straight-forward. But then, at the end, came this exchange:
q: another log, 11:26:19 , mixcalAcetate01 commencing; 12:22:45, same description. Is there another? Please explain?
a: because there must have been an inversion on the level of the vial standards (?); when I performed the 3 mixcal IRMS, and then I add another line for mixcal acetate, and if I forget to increase the bottle, and then it doesn’t inject the acetate, but the mixcal IRMS’s, then the the mixcal acetates do not correspond, because what was injected was the alkanes. So when I realize that has happened, I restart the right bottle.q: summarizing — a bottle that got mixed up, a little vial, you saw the data was wrong.
a: yes.q: then fixed the problem and re-ran to generate correct data.
a: yes.q: now we don’t have enough time to go into more of these. Did any of these cause you to — strike.
q: you didn’t mix up the bottles, you copied the wrong line of text?
a: yes, I didn’t increment a copy and paste on the level of the instrument I finished a copy and on the level of the bottle, it stayed the same as on the alkane.q: we can put that aside. Minute to confer?
[ Landis is smiling ]
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS.
Brunet: we give you an A+, thank you.
Suh: would she like to read the briefs?
All: yes.
What’s happening here is that it appears a mistake occurred in the testing, and Mongongu corrected it. At least, that’s the story that USADA wants to paint for the arbitrators. USADA’s lawyer is trying to get out in front of a very real problem in the documentation and the testing: the mixing up of some sample numbers, or perhaps worse. Tomorrow morning’s cross-examination on this point will be very interesting.
Did Mongongu simply copy a wrong line of text? Or did something else happen? My bet is that Maurice Suh will extract more information, and some potentially damaging information from this witness. But we’ll have to wait until the morning to see how that plays out.
Thanks for this update. Very interesting. I wish Floyd’s team could have questioned this witness today instead of tomorrow.
No way. Give me the night to re-read the transcript and poke holes in her story. Which is exactly what I am sure that they are doing right now. Although, from the laughter and smiles, it’s quite possible that they could have done it there on the spot.
What is happening here is Young/USADA are screwing up. Remember the sequence. USADA presents, Landis Presents, USADA rebuts. No Landis rebut.
USADA should have presented why the tests mean he’s a doper. Period, nothing more. Let Landis argue mistakes, attack his experts. Then, what left hanging from Landis presentation, bring the LNDD employees and experts to rebut narrow arguments from Landis experts. Not up front about the entire process.
Landis’ wiki approach is working better than he could ever imagine. USADA is structuring its case to rebut the public defense. That’s exactly what Landis needed USADA to do and they fell into the trap. USADA has opened the entire process to scrunity. This allows Landis to punch holes int eh procedures and he is. By next week, this process will look so bad, it will be hard for Brunet and McLaren to convict him.
Regarding this afternoon’s testimony, Mongongu threw out a ton of stats and procedures. Is everything she said right? They was an awful lot of information presented through an intepretator.
Further, thanks to USADA’s translator incomptence, Jacobs, Scott and Suh have all night to pour over this testimony, not 15 minutes.
In 24 hours she will come off as very competent and the process will look clean, good and Landis will have even more of an uphill fight. Or, Suh will have her re-canting all kinds of things she said today and leave everyone with the impression the operator did not know what the hell she was doing.
Yesterday Brenna look good and smart and his testimony looked damaging. Suh made him look like a bought and paid for hack after sleeping on his testimony.
Tomorrow Suh will have her so confused she’ll be unsure she works for the LNDD.
If so, Young should be fired for allowing this to happen. Putting her on the stand to spit out a million facts is very very dangerous gambit for USADA’s case. And they don’t appear done. They have four other analytical chemist on the witness list.
Why do you think Suh, Scott and Landis were smiling.