> It strongly implies that the person putting it in writing didn't know it was illegal, because otherwise they wouldn't have put it in writing.
Just because someone created evidence that didn’t have to exist doesn’t mean they didn’t know their actions were illegal.
On Chris Hansen’s latest predator sting show the suspects frequently acknowledge, in writing, the age of the decoy and the sex acts they want to perform. They also take steps to create alibis, suss out if it is a sting, or otherwise avoid getting caught, which indicates clearly that they know what they are doing is illegal.
The sting show is obviously setting up a situation in which the suspects who know they're breaking the law think the evidence is only in the hands of their co-conspirators who have the same incentive to conceal it as they do.
Major corporations know that their emails etc. are discoverable regardless of whether the recipient is trusted. It's also not even necessary to disclose the true intention to anyone else in the company, unlike a situation where they're trying to enter into an intrinsically illegal transaction with a third party. The manager can just come up with a rationale for closing the store all on her own and then tell everyone else that it's happening.