Criminal coverups are frequently not works of artful mastery. Typically, they're quite the opposite.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

I'm not sure how many people here have seen the 2001 movie Bully, a dramatization of the real-life murder of Bobby Kent, where a group of Florida teenagers conspire to kill a problematic member of their social circle.

It's a well-made--if rather haunting--movie about crime and punishment, adolescent style.

The movie shows that the group is able to successfully entrap Kent and lure him to his death. However, the most intriguing part of the movie is the immediate aftermath of the murder. There's the panic about leaving evidence at the scene, the guilt, the finger blaming, the leaks, the blabbing. It's total chaos. It's very clear that while these kids had a definite plan on committing the crime, they are completely and utterly in over their heads in trying to conceal it.

Their story unravels quickly. One by one, they are all caught. In the end, the entire group receives varying prison sentences depending on their involvement in the killing.

Normally, you would think a President and his advisors would be more sophisticated than a group of dim-witted teenagers carrying out a deadly grudge. However, we're not dealing with a normal President. And despite having all the tools of power at his disposal, any sort of conspiracy to cover-up a crime is inevitably going to be a messy, sordid affair. There's going to be a lot of people who are panicking underneath their seemingly calm exteriors. Getting on the same page and getting all stories straight is not going to be an easy task. There's going to be the pressure to cut a deal against the others to serve themselves. And there's just going to be an angry clash of personalities thrown into the same basket against their will.

In the end, the house of cards typically comes crashing down. It did in Bully. And I think it will do the same here.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Nixon was much better at it - at least he had enough sense

not to disclose the existence of the tapes himself. Watergate really started to unravel when Nixon panicked and fired Archibald Cox in an attempt to prevent the release of the tapes. But most of Nixon's minions were pros (some were idiots) and managed to keep the whole mess under wraps at least for awhile. SCROTUS' goons, in contrast, are all rank amateurs (like their boss) who can't keep their stories straight and can't control the boss's tweets. I've been saying that this will take awhile to come apart, like Watergate, but now I'm not so sure. The sheer Keystone Kops quality of the entire Trump WH looks like it could be its own rapid undoing.

[gratuitous]

2. Body Heat explores the same territory

"In any crime, there's 50 ways to screw up. If you can think of 25 of them, you're a genius. And you ain't no genius." Mickey Rourke's small-time hood character quoting back his own words to William Hurt's small-time lawyer character.

[Orsino]

3. No Trump operation would be a work of artful mastery...

...as long as he kept inserting himself into the process.

Thankfully, Trump is too lazy ever to have gotten good at cover-ups, and in the political arena he's a total n00b. He has helpfully staffed up with a bunch of weasels who will eventually turn on each other, and on him (because he'll beat them to it).