[SunkenCiv]

That's part of the claim -- that he was ID'd by some plausible-denial freelancers who told him he'd have to work for them or go to prison. Apparently the evidence offered by the author is a pile of passports and fake IDs and diary entries by the suspect. BTW, those who watch the video may be struck by the total lack of reaction by those in attendance. Number one, there probably weren't hundreds in attendance, and number two, Grand Rapids audiences are a little more reserved than are those found elsewhere in the country. Except when Trump is here of course.

[Rockingham]

The plausible denial stuff is overdone in the usual telling. Instead, orders are given to reliable people through the chain of command. My Assistant US Attorney acquaintance and the US Attorney himself got calls from superiors in the Department of Justice advising them to be cooperative with the CIA's national security concerns in certain cases, and then the CIA paid a visit with the details of what they wanted.

A friend, now passed, worked in deep cover military intelligence assignments overseas. At home in Florida in the early 1980s, he got a call directly from a high ranking general in his chain of command in the Pentagon. My friend was told to go to Miami to meet with some Mafia figures to find out what they wanted in order to help locate an illegal shipment of military small arms that had gotten on the black market in the Carribean. In the wrong hands, such weapons could precipitate a coup or help inflame discontent into a civil war.

My friend did as he was told and spent several days in Miami drinking, dining, and swapping jokes and stories with Mafia figures as a deal was worked out. The result was that the guns were located and seized and a Mafia accountant who had stolen from the US military was suddenly released from federal prison. The general in the Pentagon was so pleased with how smoothly things went that my friend got more such assignments as a regular backup channel for those kinds of dealings.

The "plausible deniability" aspect is just the lies and dodges that get told in order to keep secrets. The moving parts though are within the bureaucratic chain of command. Thus D.B. Cooper was likely assigned to or recruited for whatever he did for the government and was paid well for it.

The idea that Cooper was blackmailed into doing such jobs is also suspect because it is hard to imagine mission planners trusting blackmail as a motive. People resent being blackmailed and tend to rebel and strike back against it. Cash, country, and chain of command provide better and more trustworthy motives.