Well if you read through the post, especially Linus's follow-up comments, you'll find that his very point is this distinction between the truth of these technically correct, weasel-worded statements and the bigger picture.

Sentencing is ultimately up to the judge, and the truth is that Ortiz used the threat of "up to 35 years" to try to force a plea bargain. When Swartz refused a bargain which would have branded him a felon, as is his right, Ortiz's office drummed up additional charges.

Ortiz is likely technically correct when she says she never explicitly sought the maximum penalty for these extra charges she piled on. She is also deliberately evading the point by saying so, which is that her office absolutely threw the book at a kid for downloading some PDFs.

Imagine your kid comes home reeking of smoke. You ask him, anger in your voice, whether he was smoking with his buddies in the woods out back again. Kid cooly replies, "I wasn't smoking cigarettes."

Then you find a joint in his pocket. Kid was technically correct when he said he wasn't smoking cigarettes, but he was also "lying" in the sense that he sought to obfuscate and create a diversion from his wrongdoing by making such a statement.