He did not deny the payments.

He explained them.

All of them, in order, fluently, for forty minutes, and about a third of the explanation was plausible and a third was arguable and a third was nonsense, and he delivered all three portions in exactly the same tone.

On Halyard: a confidential acquisition assessment that had to be kept off the books because of a counterparty’s sensitivities.

On Merrow: real work, which it partly was.