It sounds more like they are saying "Yes, this is bad, but technically not illegal under our laws". Sounds more like they are doing their job rather than being emotional about it.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with this idiom. "Mental gymnastics" can be motivated by emotions, but they don't have to be. It isn't motivation that makes any particular mental activity gymnastic, but rather it is incoherence. The commissioner writes as if [0] doesn't exist, even though he probably had it open in another window on his screen while writing the dissent. Ideology and avarice were probably more salient motivators than emotion.
