Officials said that as part of the investigation, the FBI and the Justice Department have used police tactics employed to break open drug rings, pressuring current and former mid-level employees of at least one tobacco company to turn over information about their corporate bosses. In recent weeks, according to industry and government officials, FBI agents have knocked on doors of perhaps a dozen Richmond-area Philip Morris Cos. employees during the dinner hour. The agents flashed their badges and genially asked a few questions of the tobacco giant's workers. The government has also demanded documents directly from the company. Earlier testimony and documents provided by the corporations to the FDA and Congress are being compared to internal memoranda to see if there are any conflicts.
Authorities also hope to discover if pertinent information has been withheld.
Now the cigarette companies face a new challenge, from a Justice Department that has decided to use some of its most formidable tools against the industry. You let these people who are less culpable tell the story and see where all this leads. The potential infraction involves a federal law that prohibits making oral or written false statements to government agencies. Law enforcement officials would not reveal what documents are under review, but examples of potential contradictions are numerous. But documents have surfaced, some of them decades old, that appear to suggest that company executives had information that nicotine was addictive.