Have you with your IT background decommissioned servers ?  Just what process did you use ?  Seems to me that the servers were in essence still intact and available that at least they took the precaution to keep them. The question would arise it would seem more of just how secure was the facility they stored them in. That the FBI questioned the IT administrator who they gave partial immunity to, it would seem that they know the answers to these questions. I have removed old machines from service and generally the important information was ported to the new server. Generally, however, we "wiped" the old machine before scrapping it and any of the removable storage that was no longer going to be used. We however junked or sold the old machines. It appears they retained them which from a security standpoint is likely better than the alternative of selling or junking them.