No One Plans The Cover-Up

“The Cover-up is Worse than the Crime.”

We’ve all heard that cliche at least once in our lives.  It’s always comes after someone gets caught after committing a crime, and they seemingly got away with it.

And it’s complete and total horseshit.

Lying to the cops isn’t worse than murder, or rape, or robbery, or espionage.  Not even close.  Not on any possible metric.

So, why do we hear this cliche each time someone gets caught after the crime?  Why does someone always mutter this cliche each and every time?

Because the cover-up gets little to no planning ahead of the actual crime.  The cover-up is an afterthought.  The original crime gets all of the planning, but getting away with it is merely an afterthought.

Think back to every heist movie and television series that has come out in the last 20-30 years.  They mostly follow the same pattern…

• Normal person facing extraordinary stress makes choice to commit a crime to get out of their problems.
• Every detail of the crime is planned, from the tiniest detail to the second by second execution of the crime itself.
• Person performs the crime, but something goes wrong after the crime.  Usually, a coconspirator does something stupid.
• Crazy things happen because they didn’t plan getting away with the crime.
• The better movies have the person getting caught, or losing more than they gained.  The bad ones have the person living happily ever after.

Every fucking time.  EVERY. FUCKING. TIME.  Now, what do bad movie tropes have to do with Trump-Russia?  Why does it feel like we’re in the middle of a heist movie?

Because like every heist movie, the criminals didn’t plan the getaway.  They’re winging it.  They didn’t think they would win in the first place, so why plan on getting away with it?  The bad guys planned on losing the election and creating a media outlet to spread their message afterward.  Now, they have to govern, and they’re winging it.

Winging it is how they get caught.

So, it’s not that the cover-up is worse than the crime, but the execution of the cover-up is worse than the execution of the crime.