Not the OP, understand and largely agree with your reasoning, though assuming there was a preponderance of evidence, why would someone only destroy a fraction of it knowing that doing so would be irrelevant, their efforts if discovered would be counter to their goals, and they would face significant penalties for doing so?

Because people are generally impulsive and irrational? The FBI agent in question sent some of the files, not all of them and then got called out by the judge, so he panicked and deleted the laptop. The prosecution didn't use any of the recordings at all, and proved their case with the existing evidence so it didn't really impact the case.

It's exculpatory evidence. I.e. if the Court was made aware of it, it would have undone their case.

This is exactly why adverse inference is a thing, and needs to be enforced to the hilt to exonerate, because otherwise, it doesn't disincent the State from doing the same thing in the future where they trade one of their own to really make a case stick.

The Court must symmetrically apply it's measures in disincenting pathologic behavior.

Meh.. there's nothing to say that the evidence was exculpatory. The FBI had the corrupt Senators co-conspirators, bank statements, text messages, fraudulent financial docs -- it could have impugned the government's cooperating witness who recorded the conversations. But the guy was obviously guilty and was convicted by a jury and the FBI agent is going to jail. Seems like a win-win with plenty of deterrence for other agents. No FBI agent is going to willingly throw away their career / pension / livelihood / years of their life to get a conviction "for the state".

It. Doesn't. Matter.

You're not getting it. We could discuss this in a nuanced manner if the evidence existed, and could be weighed by the Court.

We no longer can, because the State, the very entity we bequeathe with the sole authority to conditionally suspend civil liberties in the condition of a proven beyond a reasonable doubt case, and the abscense of exculpatory evidence, destroyed it.

The Court must assume that that information was so damaging to the State's case, that even with all of the disincentives the legal system has to offer, a State agent committed the heinous crime of denying to the defense evidence lawfully subpoena'd.

If the Court does not exonerate, it's recognizing, and cutting law enforcement a check to undermine the rights of a defendant, and more importantly, their counsel, to lawfully surface potentially material exculpatory evidence by whoopsy-ing the material in question, and trading one of their own to make it stick.

This undermines everything the legal system has been predicated upon. This attacks the very integrity and independence of the American judiciary. No one is above the law. Especially the Government.

You may not like the defendant; I don't, but I like a rigged system even less. These are the cases that really test the mettle and integrity of the legal system, and the claim we live in a society subject to the rule of law.

It could be you in the same position. Don't even try that "Pah, never happen", because you don't know. That's why due process matters. This person was entitled to the same procedure as everyone else, and the State has willfully deprived him of it.

Nah, I get it fine, that’s why appeals exist. The judge in the defendant’s case already ruled on it and the obviously corrupt Sentator can appeal it further if he feels he’s still been wronged. The justice system is fault tolerant and unfortunately this isn’t actually even a novel problem. You’re partially right, the judge weighs exactly that question “If this evidence were exculpatory, how would it impact the case.” and the judge found that the destroyed evidence lacked exculpatory value due to the overwhelming amount of other evidence against him.

Which circles back to my original question, “assuming there was a preponderance of evidence, why would someone only destroy a fraction of it knowing that doing so would be irrelevant” - it makes no sense.

Also, at that point I had not read the ruling you referred to, which oddly clearly states the erased data was just a copy loaded to Dropbox; meaning the data exist in at least three places, one one of which is the one in question, that is the disk on the laptop that was erased by the agent. No explanation is provided of what happened to the other copies.

See “parties learned that a paralegal in Mr. Wilkinson's office named Karri Layton had uploaded the Neal recordings to a Dropbox account” here:

https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-woods-260

In this case though, the evidence wasn't proof of a crime. This was exculpatory evidence, the exact opposite. This seems just a bit more heinous than planting evidence for a conviction.