The C.M. Leon Emails. How to Cover-up Evil and Silence Your Accusers.

Dear JP, I’m sorry to hear about this horrible accusation being brought against you. Serving all these people isn’t for the weak, is it? I’ve weathered many of these storms myself over the years, so I thought I’d write and give you some advice from an old friend. We’re all in this together so we have to look out for each other. Otherwise, these people might bring us all down through their story-telling. And what would happen to the world then?

Fortunately, you have a legacy of success, a good reputation in your field, and a growing number of loyal followers. You didn’t get here by accident. You’ve successfully managed the impressions others have formed of you over the years. You’ve earned it. Now someone is accusing you of something scandalous. Don’t panic. If you follow these steps you’ll survive. It’s quite simple really.

First, I know you’ve done a good job over the years of ingratiating your followers. They love you partly because you say nice things about them, do them favors, and have acted in ways that lead them to believe you are on their side, and their side is the right side. Keep doing that and you’ll continue climbing the ladder. The higher you climb, the more untouchable you will be.

Second, chances are you’ll survive this because you’ve established yourself as an exemplary model of success. You’ve written books and spoken at countless events. Now people base their own life and work off of you. They will protect you because they see you as their role model. No one wants to find out they’ve been following a phony. It’s not just your identity at stake; theirs is as well.

Third, be thankful you’ve engaged in a great deal of self-promotion. Organizations are named after you, important people have endorsed your work, your biography tells of your accolades, credentials, and vast experience, and buildings proudly bear your name.

Fourth, and this should be obvious, but hopefully you haven’t given your followers any real power. Make sure you centralize all of that. Do your best to get people on your governing board who are loyal to you. Teach them the importance of loyalty and mutual trust.

As a result, a thick wall should exist between yourself and these accusations. This is called buffering. You’ll want to keep adding to this buffer. Then when a scandal breaks, few will believe such accusations. They won’t even consider whether the stories are true or not because they won’t be able to entertain the possibility that a person of your caliber would harbor such dark secrets. Certainly, your followers won’t believe them, and you have quite a lot of them. But let’s not take the risk of them finding out. So, start with these assertive tactics:

1: Try to isolate the accuser. Meet with her in secret and find out what she wants. If you can silence her, great. Your ingratiation skills will help here. Use opinion conformity and make her think you are on her side and that there is more that unites you than divides you. Use blandishments and flatter her with smooth talk. If that doesn’t work, bribe her with favors, gifts, or even money. Tell her it’s in everyone’s best interest that you handle this quietly.

2: Supplication often works if ingratiation fails. Tell her how hard this has been for you and what might happen to you if this information gets out. Do your best to feign being hurt through tears and pleading. If she can tell you are grieving and desperate, she might feel bad for you and perhaps extend sympathy and grace. She may even forget about her own pain.

3: Intimidation may be needed if you still haven’t succeeded. Quickly transform from the passive puppy dog groveling for help to the aggressive lion demanding submission. It will confuse her tremendously, and that is a good thing. Tell her how hard this will be for her and what might happen to her if this information gets out. It’s pretty low and completely contradictory to what you just said, but people tend to run from lions.

Those are strong tactics and you should succeed. However, if by chance you fail, move to legal proceedings, ideally the kind that happens outside of a courtroom. Settle all of it behind closed doors. Hire an “independent” mediator and get everyone to sign a non-disclosure agreement that states this is the only legal option available and that every communication will remain confidential and inadmissible in a court. You may need this later.

If you’ve gotten her signature, congratulations! You’ve successfully kept a dark secret an inside secret. Beware, though, it’s still a dark secret, and dark inside secrets can get out and become free secrets. If there is a paper trail or stories are still being told, you’ll want to be prepared for that.

If she won’t sign, or If you suspect the scandal is about to go public despite your best efforts, you need to get out in front of it. This is called anticipatory impression management. Fortunately, there are companies you can hire who help organizations manage their image in situations like this.

Send a messenger ahead to deliver a pre-constructed narrative of the situation. You don’t want people defining the situation for themselves. You must define it for them. You know this is messy and there will be many questions. By doing this, you’ll ensure people only ask the questions you can easily answer. Contact some of your powerful friends and ask them to publicly support you.

Now pull out your impression management toolbox. You’ll need the following defensive tactics for all the statements you’ll have to make. Fortunately, there are dozens of interchangeable tools at your disposal. Stay calm. You’ve spent years mastering your craft and much of this you do already without even knowing it. Oh, and now is a good time to dust off your Bible and familiarize yourself with passages like Matthew 18.

1. Try to meet with the accuser one last time. Wield your intimidation tool and condemn her for bringing a charge against the Lord’s anointed. Ask her about her anger and bitterness and all the things she needs to receive forgiveness for. If that doesn’t work, threaten legal action for defamation and breaking the non-disclosure agreement. Threats can be very effective because they give the impression you are powerful and able to inflict harm. You can still bury this.

2. If that fails, start reminding all your followers of the real agenda behind accusers and those who spread stories. They are divisive, angry, bitter, warring people who just want to tear down something good out of jealousy and malice. Preach sermons on slander, gossip, and the importance of submitting to leadership. This will cause a lot of people to be hesitant to speak out and take sides.

3. Launch a campaign to condemn the condemners. It’s likely your followers will join you in this campaign. This will be very effective as many voices unite to take up your cause. The best way to respond to someone challenging your integrity is to challenge their integrity.

4. Be sure to over-communicate facts about the scandal that are easy to defend and under-communicate facts that are difficult to defend. If possible, strategically omit certain disruptive details entirely so as to keep them hidden in obscurity. If anyone probes, just deflect with empty arguments. Keep deflecting and eventually those questions will starve to death.

5. Give the appearance that you are on the side of morality and what’s good for society. Remind people of all the sacrifices you’ve made over the years. Do condemn in the strongest terms possible the kind of behavior you are being accused of, but don’t admit to committing the behavior yourself.

6. Employ your supplication skills. Show people you are the real victim here. Tell them about the difficulties you’ve endured as a result of these accusations. This will go a long way to getting more people to rally around you, especially those who are gullible and inclined to extend mercy.

Before you reach for any other tools, remember the important but subtle distinction between excuses and justifications. An excuse recognizes harm done to others, but doesn’t take responsibility for behaviors. A justification takes responsibility for behaviors, but doesn’t recognize any harm done to others. If it’s clear people have been harmed, but not clear you are the guilty one, use excuses. If it’s clear you are the guilty one, but not clear that any real damage was done, use justifications.

7: You can excuse certain behaviors by denying intention. Perhaps it was accidental, outside of your control, or you weren’t aware of the negative consequences. Had you known how people were responding to your behavior, you would have certainly made different decisions.

8: You can excuse a few behaviors by denying volition. The situation was so out of the ordinary or difficult that you can’t possibly be expected to have controlled your behavior. Maybe the accuser set a trap and you simply fell for it, like any normal person would.

9: You can excuse some behaviors by denying agency. Make the suggestion that you yourself did not make the decision or perform the behavior. This one is akin to blaming others. Perhaps there are some employees or board members you can sacrifice.

10: You can justify certain behaviors by denying injury. Make the claim that no real harm was done, so your behavior can easily be overlooked. Point out the harm that wasn’t done so people think it’s not all that serious.

11: You can justify some behaviors by denying there were any real victims. The accuser deserved what happened to her or brought it on herself and she’s simply playing the victim card.

12: You can justify many behaviors by suggesting that the events in question are being misrepresented, construed, or taken out of context. Use the word “just” to downplay the behavior. If you succeed, the scandal will be seen as meaningless and people will move on.

13. If these don’t work, suggest you were handicapped in some way. Perhaps the behavior was years ago and you can blame it on your immaturity. People will believe your behavior was just due to a lack of experience or training and completely in your past.

14. Appeal to normative practices. Give the impression your behavior was consistent with all behavior of that type. For example, if you are a man being accused of sexual innuendo, just suggest that all men engage in such talk. Remind followers that everyone makes mistakes, we are all human, and God has always used flawed people.

15. Appeal to cultural practices. Show people how your behavior is consistent with the culture you are from. Talk about the differences in generations, how moral standards have changed over time, and that this is all just matter of cultural differences.

16. Lastly, remind people of how much the Church and society needs you. Make your contributions to societal values more important than your actual behavior. People will overlook any illicit conduct if they believe the retention of your position will serve more important goals like filling pews and getting laws passed.

17. Above all, keep them from recognizing that the cardinal ethic of any public servant is integrity. Integrity is the keystone of all the virtues. Remove it, and all morality crumbles. You’ve survived this crumbling in your own life. The people will survive it as well.

18. As a last resort, apologize. Don’t worry though, you can apologize without having to endure penalty or consequences. Keep it general and focus on how sorry you are for the way your behavior has made others feel. You may even invite people to investigate your behavior. That will really look good.

If you succeed, you will retain your legitimacy. In fact, you may even win more favor. People will admire you for how you handled the situation. You’ll build an even bigger following and you’ll have become more experienced in managing such scandals.

Any future threats should be handled now with greater ease. Just sharpen your tools each time and you’ll succeed. And there will be fewer of those threats. Victims will not want to face such a confusing, complex, sophisticated battle that might just end up causing them more harm.

Of course, you’ll have those who see through all this and simply don’t believe you. Don’t worry about that. You and your followers can write them off as haters, frauds, and fakes. You’ll need to manage them from now on, but you’ve got plenty of help.

This is a good start and should get you through. With time, I’ll teach you the advanced tactics. There are also plenty of examples I can show you. You aren’t the only one facing this warfare. And if your enemies do succeed in bringing you down, I’ll teach you how to claim the forgiveness credit, plan out your own recovery, and resurface somewhere else with your best days ahead of you. You got this!

Protector of the Kingdom,

The Reverend Dr. C.M. Leon

This email and its contents are confidential. I know you would never betray me, but just in case let me insert this long disclaimer filled with scary legal terms as if you are my client and I am your lawyer, even though you haven’t agreed to any confidentiality, but perhaps you will think you have because you just opened and read this email.