DOJ joins suit against Lance Armstrong

The U.S. Justice Department has joined a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former teammate of cyclist Lance Armstrong, an Armstrong attorney confirmed Friday.

Former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after failing a drug test, filed a suit in 2010 against their former team, which was sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service.

The lawsuit accused the team's former management of defrauding the government of millions of dollars because the team management knew about team members' drug use and didn't do anything.

"Just a little while ago we got an email from the Department of Justice notifying us that DOJ is joining the case," Armstrong attorney Mark Fabiani said.

Earlier Friday, another Armstrong lawyer, Robert Luskin, said: "Lance and his representatives worked constructively over these last weeks with federal lawyers to resolve this case fairly, but those talks failed because we disagree about whether the Postal Service was damaged.

"The Postal Service's own studies show that the Service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship – benefits totaling more than $100 million."

Armstrong denied drug use and blood doping for years, but publicly admitted such use in January, three months after international cycling's governing body stripped him of his seven Tour de France titles. That stripping game after a damning report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency accused Armstrong and his team of the "most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program" in cycling history.