Plausible deniability is a social tactic that allows people to deny knowledge, participation, or an active role in carrying out an activity, relaying a loaded message, etc. The deniability exists due to a lack of culpable evidence, or more commonly, from multiple plausible intrepretations of the present evidence. Plausible deniablity is prime shield of defense against accountability, and forms the basis of covert attacks that make up human social behavior.
In a chain of command, senior officials can deny knowledge or responsibility for actions committed by or on behalf of members of their organizational hierarchy. They may do so because of a lack of evidence that can confirm their participation, even if they were personally involved in or at least willfully ignorant of the actions. If illegal or otherwise disreputable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any awareness of such acts to insulate themselves and shift the blame onto the agents who carried out the acts, as they are confident that their doubters will be unable to prove otherwise. The lack of evidence to the contrary ostensibly makes the denial plausible (credible), but sometimes, it makes any accusations only unactionable.
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