331. Prof. McLaren added that since Dr. Rodchenkov was under the FBI witness protection programme, he was aware that if he failed to be truthful to Prof. McLaren this could jeopardise his ability to remain in the United States. This was “a powerful incentive to his being reliable and credible”. For all these reasons, Prof. McLaren considered Dr. Rodchenkov to be “a credible witness” whose description of the Sochi sample-swapping scheme could be relied on.
335. The authorities in the United States imposed certain conditions in respect of Prof. McLaren’s ability to communicate with Dr. Rodchenkov and to access his documents. This included the undertaking that Prof. McLaren would not provide access to the electronic data files of Dr. Rodchenkov to any third parties, and that there would not be any transcripts of Prof. McLaren’s interviews of Dr. Rodchenkov. Prof. McLaren testified that he “had to agree” on these conditions and that he “wasn’t in a position to negotiate” them. He did not feel comfortable in answering the Panel’s question as to the identity of the U.S. authorities in question.
338. Prof. McLaren expained that he had not sought to obtain access to the original versions of those 18 pages because he was confident that Dr. Rodchenkov’s lawyers were not supplying fraudulent documents to the investigation. Prof. McLaren confirmed that he had not sought to obtain information about the writing in the diary – for example whether it was written in pencil or ink – and had not sought to have the copies of the diary authenticated since he had decided that it would not be relied on in the investigation. However, the Panel pointed out a reference to Dr. Rodchenkov’s diaries at page 55 of the First McLaren Report, which in particular served as basis for the material statement that the Russian Sports Minister Mutko took part in the alleged doping scheme. Prof. McLaren was not able to explain the inconsistency of his testimony, nor why he used the excerpts of the diaries, of which the authenticity had not been tested, and without review of the full version of the diaries, in relation to the material allegation in the First McLaren Report that, “excerpts from Dr. Rodchenkov’s diary reflect several meetings with Minister Mutko in the month prior to and during Sochi Games. Dr. Rodchenkov’s evidence is that the doping cover up plan for Sochi was discussed at those meetings”.