EXPLAIN AWAY

{v.} To explain (something) so that it does not seem true or important. * /John explained away his unfinished homework by showing the teacher his broken arm in a cast./ * /It is hard to explain away Abraham Lincoln's dream about being dead, which he had a few days before he was shot./ * /The man could not explain away the gun and the marked money from the bank robbery that the police found in his car./