You may say the whole idea of character in fiction is defined by people holding specific information which for various reason. Sometimes perverse... Sometimes noble. They are determined not to disclosed.
Dysfunctional incentive systems will get dysfunctional and sometimes prosecutable results, whether by employees gaming the system or by perverse controls that unwittingly incentivize the wrong behaviors.
No wonder Mr Trimble so often seemed an embattled figure... and yet to those of us who have followed him in recent years one of his personal trademarks was the perverse manner in which moments of deep crisis in Northern Ireland's never-ending political negotiating process sometimes seemed to inspire him to a kind of jaunty calm.