Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there's a kind of naïveté at work here. He cooperated when questioned after returning from North Korea, only to have his own words used against him when he was charged. He didn't take sanctions violations seriously enough and when he asked the State Dept for permission beforehand to go, they said no, and he went anyway.
Robert Jackson, Supreme Court justice and lead prosecutor at Nuremberg: "any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to police under any circumstances"
While that qualifier is unnecessary (we know who Robert H. Jackson is), and while being a Supreme Court Justice is certainly impressive, Jackson is even more impressive for applying his ideologies and simultaneously writing about them and publishing while serving as Attorney General.
The quote you pull is a good one, but I prefer what I think is a finger wag to all prosecutors, who actually hold the most powerful positions in our government (arguably more powerful than Judges, Senators or Presidents):
Nothing better can come out of this meeting of law enforcement officers than a rededication to the spirit of fair play and decency that should animate the federal prosecutor. Your positions are of such independence and importance that while you are being diligent, strict, and vigorous in law enforcement you can also afford to be just. Although the government technically loses its case, it has really won if justice has been done.
Often enough, a federal prosecutor is seduced by their own ambition for the sake of their record (perversely seen as more important than justice), that their case should be won at all cost, and the process seems to be to unfairly pile on charges to exaggerate the actual alleged crime and induce outrage, and economically disenfranchise the suspect or defendant (often employing civil forfeiture for this effect) so that the defendant can not afford to mount a viable defense, in order to induce a plea deal, which often leads to innocent people accruing criminal records, serving time and subsequently being less able to earn a decent living paying less taxes, and not living as long as they might.
I may have gone around the OT bend, but it seems like the way prosecutors operate in general in serving their own ambitions, against Jackson's recommendations, hurts America's bottom line by synthetically reducing the amount of taxes that can be collected and diminishes or disables that individual's ability to contribute to society. The story of Aaron Swartz comes to mind as a perfect example of this.