Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Senior Member of the House Committees on Judiciary, Homeland Security, and Budget, a member of the Helsinki Commission and the sponsor of the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, issued this statement following the issuance of a ban on Russia from the 2020 Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics:

As a senior member of the United States House Judiciary Committee and the Helsinki Commission, I welcome and applaud the decision of the World Anti-Doping Agency to ban the nation of Russia from games of the next Summer Olympiad, in Tokyo in 2020, and the games of the next Winter Olympiad, in Beijing. For many years, Russia has been a global pariah and flouted rules from the global community of nations, designed to ensure fairness in sport. “In 2016, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov exposed the Russian state-sponsored doping scandal that took place during the 2014 Sochi Olympics. By deceiving international anti-doping authorities and swapping athletes’ samples, Russian officials cheated U.S. athletes out of Olympic glory and U.S. corporations out of honest sponsorships. These corrupt officials used bribes and illicit payments, sometimes through U.S. financial institutions, to commit this fraud. Unfortunately, the masterminds behind the Russian sports doping operation escaped punishment for their actions because there was no U.S. legal mechanism to bring them to justice.

“In February 2018, the Helsinki Commission held a briefing featuring Dr. Rodchenkov’s attorney, Jim Walden, on combating fraud in sports and the role of whistleblowers in safeguarding the integrity of international competitions. In March, I met with Dr. Rodchenkov to discuss the threat posed by Russia to the United States, corruption in international sports bodies, and how the United States can contribute to the international effort to counter doping fraud. In July, the Helsinki Commission held another hearing that explored the interplay between doping fraud and globalized corruption and U.S. policy responses, including the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act. In October 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted seven individuals for involvement in a Russian-operated military intelligence program in which GRU officers are alleged to have conducted sophisticated hacking of U.S. and international anti-doping agencies who investigated and publicly condemned Russia’s state-sponsored doping program. The hacking victims also included 230 athletes from approximately 30 countries. The operation was part of a disinformation campaign in which victims’ personal email communications and individual medical and drug testing information, sometimes modified from its original form, was used to actively promote media coverage to further a narrative favorable to the Russian government.

“At the beginning of the 116th Congress, I reintroduced RADA—the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, which passed the House of Representatives in October 2019. This critical legislation establishes criminal penalties for participating in a scheme in commerce to influence a major international sport competition through prohibited substances or methods; provide restitution to victims of such conspiracies; protect whistleblowers from retaliation; and establish coordination and sharing of information with the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

“In the realm of international sports, unscrupulous individuals seeking to bridge the gap between their own skill and the pinnacle of achievement turn to the use of performance enhancing drugs and increasingly sophisticated modes of concealing the use of any proscribed drugs. This practice, some of it state-sanctioned, has the ability to undermine international relations, and is often connected to more nefarious actions by state actors. Doping fraud is a crime in which big money, state assets, and transnational criminals gain advantage and honest athletes and companies are defrauded. Doping fraud in major international competitions—like the Olympics, the World Cup and the Tour de France—is often linked with corruption, bribery and money laundering. It is not just victory that criminals engaged in doping fraud snatch away from clean athletes—athletes depend on prize money and sponsorships to sustain their livelihoods. I would like to commend my colleague in the House of Representatives, Dr. Mitchell Burgess, for his work on this issue. I will not relent until this bill passes the Senate and is enacted into law. In the meanwhile, I commend the World Anti-Doping Agency for their decision to bar Russia from competitive sport in the games of the next Olympiad.