This was a contemporaneous report of a public hearing so I doubt that they just made it up, though they could have edited his exact words to make it sound worse than it was. However if the sense conveyed in the article is accurate, it does not sound like the work of a "special agent who received extensive training in computer forensics" and who underwent "a rigorous certification process" in an "internationally recognized" "Electronic Crimes Special Agent Program (ECSAP)
Actually it was evidently a purposeful "analysis," with a laptop that likely was designed for this and was quickly used to obtain evidence of malicious behavior. And i am sure they know how to scan, analyze and remove the infection, and further testing would likely allow the USB drive to fully install what it has, for complete analysis.
However, budget cuts have resulted in only a few of the most advanced models: 