Smoke and mirrors

Smoke and mirrors is a classic technique in magical illusions that makes an entity appear to hover in empty space.

It was documented as early as 1770 and spread widely after its use by the charlatan Johann Georg Schröpfer, who claimed to conjure spirits.

The phrase "smoke and mirrors" has entered North American English to refer to "obscuring or embellishing of the truth of a situation with misleading or irrelevant information.

"[1] The earliest known use of the idiom came from the biography How the Good Guys Finally Won: Notes from an Impeachment Summer, published in 1975.

The idiom was flipped and shortened to its current form and had become a common term in politics by the end of the 1970s.