Defer to an authority.
That's the way of a good blagger.
It doesn't matter if the authority you defer to is your human-sized pet bunny called Harvey as long as you refer to him as 'a guy that used to hang around', 'a knowledgeable friend from Nashville's heyday', 'a technical master of great renoun'.
Nobody needs to know who you are actually referring to.
It's blagging of an elite standard from the text book of blag.
Notice the aspect of defering to authority in every good blag.