Yeah, that's a pretty awful defence. Passing it along and especially asking for a response is, if not tacit endorsement of the message ("Let me know if you're able to take another look at it and make any edits."), certainly implied pressure on the reviewer.
The ethical thing to do would be to say, with slightly nicer words, "sorry, we don't interfere with TechCrunch, we didn't publish the review, go tell them yourselves."
