About 25 investigators involved in the hoax Mueller Russia Collusion investigation 'accidentally' wiped their own phones prior to handing them over to the DOJ, when you see government officials and other authorities acting like the Mafia and probably getting away with it it doesn't really set a good example to everyone else. Why should the little man be constrained by the law when those at the top aren't?
https://nypost.com/2020/09/11/members-of-muellers-team-wiped-phones-during-trump-probe-doj/
I'm going to hazard a good guess that the phones used by the FBI etc for official business have very stringent security policies and may not be allowed to use the normal "short cuts" like fingerprint unlocks (which are much loved by police and others doing unauthorised searches of phones as all you need is the finger of the person, no co-operation), that the number of accidental wipes is going to be high - but also that the contents of the phone are probably backed up off the phone so the issue of "phone wipes" is likely a red herring.
I note your indignation doesn't mention that at least some of them were due to things like damage to the phone that required repair - in which case do you hand over your phone that potentially has sensitive information to a third party for repair with it's contents intact, or do you make sure everything important is backed up, and do a factory reset prior to it leaving your possession? (I'm guessing I know what the official FBI and security service policy is likely to be even for "personal devices", and it's not to hand over the phone with the data on it). Even some "official" repair processes* can/do result in the phone having a full reset as part of the process, which means that even if you don't wipe it, it could come back wiped (most companies cover that by warning you to back up data from your devices before handing them over for repair).
I routinely end up using 4 or 5 attempts to unlock my phone, as when I'm tired I tend to hit slightly off centre of the one screen buttons (a major failing with screen keyboards), so can quite see someone whose got the phone set to tight security having it lock and wipe (it took me 8 attempts the other day to unlock my tablet as I hadn't used it in a couple of months and had forgotten the last Pin).
the article also doesn't mention if the phones were wiped before or after any requests to examine them - which is kind of a big deal, as you might wipe your phone to try and solve a problem or simply to clean it up after a while and that increases quite a lot as time goes on and IIRC there is no requirement in US law for you to keep a device the same forever when you've not been instructed to (especially devices where storage is limited and most people end up deleting content/wiping them to free up space).
*Especially on things like Igear where it's deliberately made hard to repair and the manufacturer is as likely as not to replace the entire main board or phone as to do a repair.
