So, some guy asks a State Department official to destroy State Department records ( purchased/obtained using taxpayers money, this jerk Steel doesn’t work for free) and the said SD official duly obliges! It doesn’t matter the guy was the source of those records, they are still the property of US government.
You just can’t make this stuff up...
Worse then that. A Foreign National and former intelligence employee of a foreign government asked a US State Department Official to destroy official State Department documents and the little traitor does it.
That is "hung by the neck until dead" sort of activity.