You have a bizarre dictionary, most have the common usage as the first definition, and the uncommon usage as the 2nd.
But in either case, you would be very disingenous to suggest Debbie was using the "formal justification" definition when she said we "apologized" (which I'm not sure is a valid form of "apology" for that definition -- "apology" as defined by your "justification" definition is a NOUN, and doesn't have an "apologized" form).
When you have to appeal to improper forms of non-standard definitions in order to justify what has been written, you have ceded the point that Debbie was being deliberately misleading.
Sorry, but what do you think an "apologetic" is? Hippies always saying they're sorry for what the US is like? Nope, it's when they try to excuse the enemy.