Do you think that's relevant to this particular situation though? What did she do that counts as getting her hand caught in the cookie jar?

One big problem is the timing of all of this. In a typical government job, you could stab a co-worker to death, and management will sit around for three months mulling what to do about it.

In this case, it sounds like they told her to make a change, she said she disagreed but made the change anyway. And then they fired her? For what? This just doesn't ring true.

The coverup idea doesn't make much sense either. Apparently the "deleted" data was minor detail that would be published in a day or two anyway. Is it even material? Would anyone even be looking at it, aside from this scandal? Also sounds off.

My guess is that (right or wrong), she was already on someone's shitlist, and this was the last straw. The "my successors will be liars" thing certainly wouldn't make me want to work with her.

There will be an investigation, as there should be. I suspect there's little or no fire.

I actually agree with the beginning part of your comment, but then it makes much more sense to me that she was fired for political reasons. Pissing someone off or making them look bad is one of the few ways I see a fast firing happening in government these days.

One thing to add to that is that: Yes, it may be political, but it may be a very localized political situation (like a coworker or a PM or just this person's boss). The media/news/articles/discussion appear to be portraying this event in such a way as to portray the local governor/state-government in a bad light and as somehow responsible. See all the talk about the governor in this thread, the orders about nursing homes, etc.