In any case, you literally picked the wrong case. The law in play is correct--you've finally got that right (for a change).
Specifically, the parts involved are sections 1201.2(a) and (c), which prohibits "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof" that is primarily designed to circumvent a copy protection.
However, the law does not define "copy protection." I can, in theory, form a front company, write a little C program that basically says "Foo," write another little program that basically says "Hello World," claim that the Hello World program is really a copy protection on my original program, thereby making anybody using "Hello World" in technical violation of this statute.
Second, it was (and is) legal pretty much everywhere in the world. Just not for Joe American--and that's only because of a vague clause in the DMCA, which itself is seen by many conservatives as being facially unconstitutional (at the bare minimum). Yet, the Federal Government itself violates its own act by buying the software in question.
Is it a legal challenge? Probably. An exercise in hypocrisy? Definitely.
Further, I see no evidence that antiRepublicrat is defending Russian hackers. What he did was point out that the DOJ was prosecuting a guy whose products are a.) legal practically everywhere else in the world, and b.) software that the government itself has purchased and currently uses. Hardly a fair shake for the guy who wrote the software--under a law that has been constitutionally shady from the get-go.
No it was the perfect case, as it exposed two distinct lies he is always attempting to make: that copyright cases can't be criminal, and that only distributing the crack and not the copyrighted material wasn't breaking copyright law. He has repeatedly and endlessly uttered these lies, along with many others, that he has outright admitted to perpetuating for months at a time, in his defense of the criminal hackers. The fact that this case was about Russians, was not necessarily material, but undoubtedly fitting.