plausible deniability
Strategic claimed unawareness
Plausible deniability is the ability to deny knowledge of or responsibility for something, typically wrongdoing, in a way that cannot be disproven.
The term originated in intelligence operations, where information is deliberately withheld from leaders so they can truthfully claim ignorance: The operation was structured to give the president plausible deniability.
Now used broadly for any situation where someone arranges not to know uncomfortable facts: He never asked where the money came from—plausible deniability.
- front organizationDisguised entity hiding sponsors
- politicsGovernmental power struggles
- affirmative defenseDefendant's excuse admitting act
- shadow governmentConcealed parallel authority structure
- cabalScheming political faction
off the books · clean hands · compartmentalization · need to know · legal defense · obfuscation · exoneration · cover-up · defense strategy · inducement · cutout · buffer zone · coercion · complicity · willful blindness · responsibility · selective memory · feigned ignorance
- secrecysecrecy, secret, secrets, confidential, classified
- court intrigueintrigue, plots, schemes, plotting, conspiracy
- political tacticscampaigning, gerrymandering, filibuster, campaigns, voter suppression
- bureaucracybureaucracy, bureaucrat, bureaucrats, red tape, civil service
- cunningcunning, craftiness, crafty, guile, slyness
- evasionevasion, avoiding, avoids, evade, dodging
plausible deniabilitytaking responsibility
the buck stops here · mea culpa · admission of guilt · owning up · personal responsibility
plausible deniabilityfull disclosure
Withholding no information
full transparency · candor · openness · forthrightness · coming clean
plausible deniabilitypaper trail
Documentary evidence chain
smoking gun · on the record · audit trail · written record · going on record
plausible, deniability, plausibly, plausibility, implausible, implausibly, implausibility, denial, deniable