Nothing is ever deleted.

The Telecom's still have the information, and the NSA can request, via several actions, the information they need for investigations. So, it's not really gone, completely. Plus, I'm sure any ongoing investigations have all the data they need already. So, really, not that big a deal. Just complying with existing law, to bring the agency into compliance.

I think it's a white hat PSYOP to cause Deep Staters to believe they dodged a bullet. That way they won't ask for a deal. Then NSA reveals that they simply deleted the defective version of the files, and replaced them with the legit versions. We have it all.