The "records" in this case are likely the researchers saying: "WTF is happening, my work is canceled, and it seems like the politicians are starting to talk about us as scapegoats to be metaphorically lynched, let's talk about this away from our government work."

As opposed to, say, giant binders labeled Proof The Conspiracy Is Real on the front.

> Months after the pandemic started in early 2020, President Donald Trump ordered NIAID to cancel the grant [...which] led Daszak to seek advice from Morens and also Keusch, who previously had headed a different institute at the National Institutes of Health before moving to Boston University. They agreed to communicate with Morens via a Gmail account rather than his federal email to avoid their exchanges potentially becoming public through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

-- https://www.science.org/content/article/former-fauci-adviser...

It wasn’t a Conspiracy for them. It was a fact of life for them, and they worked hard to cover bottoms of their spines.