Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone” strategy is brilliant, in a truly evil sort of way. One can barely keep up with the daily malfeasance, no less spend more than a few minutes thinking about it before the next day’s malfeasance takes its place on the front burner. For some, at least there is an effort made at rationalizing the impropriety, but there’s no excuse for the email directing the remaining staff at the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, to take the documents in its safe and shred them, and when the shredder breaks, burn them.

A senior official at the main U.S. aid agency, which is being dismantled by the Trump administration, told employees to clear safes holding classified documents and personnel files by shredding the papers or putting them into bags for burning, according to an email sent to the staff.

The email, sent by Erica Y. Carr, the acting executive secretary, told employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development to empty out the classified safes and personnel document files on Tuesday. “Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” Ms. Carr wrote, according to a copy of the email obtained by The New York Times.

If this seems fundamentally batshit crazy wrong, it is.

The Federal Records Act of 1950 requires U.S. government officials to ask the records administration for approval before destroying documents.

It’s not that the government can never destroy records, but that government records must be retained unless and until they are determined to not be necessary to document the functioning of government.

Section 2203 of the Presidential Records Act, as amended (PRA) states that the incumbent President must obtain the views in writing of the Archivist before disposing of any Presidential records. This authority is routinely used to dispose of the extremely large volumes of public mail that the President and Vice President receive on a daily basis. Under certain circumstances, the Archivist must inform Congress of the proposed disposal. In these cases, the President must wait at least sixty legislative days before disposing of them. After the President’s term, the Archivist has authority to dispose of Presidential records, following a public notice and comment period.

Then again, a little-known resolution passed by the House provided that days no longer means days, so the 60 legislative day waiting period may no longer exist. But why would Carr order the covert destruction of all confidential USAID documents?

The documents being destroyed could have relevance to multiple court cases that have been filed against the Trump administration and the aid agency over the mass firing and sudden relocation of employees, the rapid dismantlement of the agency and a freeze on almost all foreign aid money.

And what does the most transparent executive branch ever have to say about this?

The State Department and a spokesperson for U.S.A.I.D. did not respond to requests for comment.

Even when paper documents are destroyed, they are required to first be preserved in digital format.

The Federal Records Act says that “agencies must follow retention schedules approved by” the records agency and covers all electronic documents as well. Printed documents must be saved in an electronic format before being destroyed, and the act says that “agencies must manage electronic records effectively, ensuring accessibility and security.”

In some federal agencies, employees regularly destroy physical documents after saving them in electronic form. It is unclear if employees at U.S.A.I.D. have ensured that all physical documents are being saved electronically before being destroyed.

In the grand scheme of chaos imposed on the federal bureaucracy on a daily, if not hourly, basis, the destruction of documents in bags marked “Secret” with a black Sharpie barely makes a dent. From the elimination of the Justice Department’s public corruption section to the evisceration of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to undermining the functionality of Social Security Administration to justify its elimination, burning docs at USAID is such a small problem as to barely be worthy of mention. But its impropriety is so manifest and inexcusable as to be shocking if only we had the time to take notice before the next flood of impropriety dropped. Then again, how would we know of the Tsunami of unlawfulness when the NOAA isn’t there to warn us of the coming storm?

And should anyone, at some point in the future, wonder what became of the confidential documents of the USAID, it will no longer matter as they no longer exist. Whether shredded or burned, if it doesn’t exist, it never happened.