It doesn’t make sense as a serious effort: if they had data, they’d show it. If they were seriously looking to collect such data, they wouldn’t request a couple

It doesn’t make sense as a serious effort: if they had data, they’d show it. If they were seriously looking to collect such data, they wouldn’t request a couple million email messages without the context needed to assess them. Now, if the goal is producing propaganda, it does make sense. That doesn’t need rigor, they just need a big number to toss out claiming that there are people collecting paychecks but not working. When it later turns out that, say, the big number was explained by people who weren’t scheduled to work on Monday or whose training includes not responding to messages outside of their chain of command, they won’t care because they’ve already moved on to the next batch.