"I shouldn't have asked..."

A Hewlett-Packard lawyer asked whether the company's investigation of it own board was on the up and up and was told -- "It is on the edge."  (See Damon Darlin & Matt Richtel, "Some at HP Knew Early of Tactics," NYT today).  His response, "I shouldn't have asked."  I assume he asked for no further details.  The lesson, apparently, is that by asking, the lawyer may have lost his ability for a "plausible denial" of knowledge of the illegal techniques used in the investigation.  He still can argue that he thought "on the edge" meant legal, I suppose, but the plausibility of his denial is now suspect.  He knew that he put a plausible denial a risk.     

He needed better training in the use of the technique, I guess.  I need to suggest to the Dean that we teach a course in the techniques of "plausible denial" for our law students; the skill seems to be very important nowadays.   Get just enough facts to offer a valid legal opinion (or other advise or services) with qualifiers and disclaimers, charge a nice fee, avoid investigating any red flags and put aside any suspicions, and then tell everyone after a scheme blows up that you were hook winked too and assumed that the limited facts as given in your opinion were the entire story.  Yup, that's the ticket.