Lying, The Advanced Course, 102

Start out with a truthful statement, verifiable and from an unimpeachable source.

Follow that by a twisted re-creation of the historical process, the intent being to cover up ineptitude or ignorance.

Add a whopping big lie, designed to turn the whole incident into a successful, heroic effort for your side to fix the problem or recover the data or whatever. The lie has to be audacious enough that your listeners are left virtually speechless.

It's a very good way to tell a lie, because any response starts off weak and gets weaker: Yes, it's true that [insert affirmation of premise], but what really happened was....and the arguments and wrangles go on and on, obscuring the point, which was that the whole effort was to bury the truth in a pile of ordure.