And that is quite a stretch.
Rather like: The guy wasn't all bad. He could have killed one more of many puppies he had drowned, but he was scared off by the nearby bulldog...
Funny you should mention Jeff Flake killing puppies. His family business did just that on hot summer days over one weekend when the AC failed and they didn’t have any alarms set up to notify anyone and no one was present at the kennel they owned. All the dogs, puppies, cats, and kittens died a horrible death from the heat.
That’s just the kind of guy Jeff Flake (and family) is.