The slow drip, drip, drip of activity from the Mueller investigation has become a steady trickle, and it may soon become a flood.  If you are having trouble keeping up, take a few moments to review the latest edition of the Guilty Guy’s Playbook. You can’t get it on Amazon, but your cellmate or your Congressperson probably has a copy you can borrow.

Make sure you don’t confuse the Guilty Guy’s Playbook with the Wrongfully Accused Guy’s Playbook.  They are actually easy to tell apart, because the Guilty Guy’s Playbook is almost always dog-eared and tattered from near-constant use, while the Wrongfully Accused Guy’s Playbook is probably still bound in its original shrink-wrap.

One of the first things you will notice about the Guilty Guy’s Playbook is that it doesn’t matter what you are guilty of.  Murder, jaywalking, robbery, sexual assault, lying to the FBI, obstructing justice, colluding with a foreign power to interfere in a federal election: your response should be the same.  It also doesn’t matter who is accusing you.  Whether you are jousting with a small-town detective, the FBI, a Congressional sub-committee, a high school classmate, or an investigative reporter; it’s all the same to the guilty guy or gal.

All of the advice in the Guilty Guy’s Playbook stems from three basic facts:

1. They have to prove it.
2. They have to follow the rules.
3. You don’t.

Keep these points in mind and the guidelines in the Playbook pretty much write themselves.

Here is a summary of the timeless advice contained in the Guilty Guy’s Playbook:

1. Deny everything.
2. Deny everything vehemently.
3. Discredit witnesses.
4. Attack the investigators.
5. When they can prove an element, admit to it, and deny everything else. Repeat as necessary.
6. Babble endlessly about unrelated and irrelevant topics.
7. Never tell the truth. Never.

As the Guilty Guy’s Playbook explains, if you are actually guilty, the truth is not your friend.  So, you need to do everything in your power to prevent the truth from coming out.  Under no circumstances should you ever discuss the actual charges or allegations. Obfuscate, lie, dissemble, and attack.  These are your essential tactics. The guiltier you are, the harder you need to work to keep the truth hidden. This is the primary difference between the Guilty Guy’s Playbook and the Wrongly Accused Guy’s Playbook, which has a lot of old-fashioned advice about discovering the truth.

Following the guidelines of the Guilty Guy’s Playbook, a hypothetical guilty guy might respond to a hypothetical investigation like this:

1. What meeting? There was no meeting.
2. I told you before, there was no meeting.
3. This investigation is rigged! THERE WAS NO MEETING!!!
4. Oh, that meeting. OK, there was a meeting, but I wasn’t there.
5. I told you before, I WASN’T THERE!!
6. OK, I was there, but there were no Russians.
7. Did you hear me? NO RUSSIANS!
8. OK, there were Russians, but I didn’t know they were Russian.
9. OK, I knew they were Russian, but I didn’t know what they wanted to talk about.
10. Why are you harassing me? Why aren’t you out catching real criminals? She’s the puppet!
11. OK, I knew what they wanted to talk about. It was adoptions.
12. OK, I knew it wasn’t adoptions; they offered to provide dirt about a political opponent, but I didn’t know it.
13. What about that guy? He’s been to lots of meetings. Why aren’t you investigating him? She’s the puppet!
14. This whole investigation is a disgrace! Sad!
15. OK, I knew they wanted to offer dirt about a political opponent, but I wasn’t interested.
16. OK, I knew they were offering dirt and I was very interested, but I didn’t know where it came from.
17. This whole investigation is corrupt!
18. OK, I knew that they were offering information obtained by a foreign intelligence service that I could use against a political opponent in a federal election, and I was very happy to receive it, but the information wasn’t bad enough to help us, so we never used it.
19. Everybody does it.
20. Witch Hunt!!!!!

December 1, 2018