I still haven't received an answer, so I assume he's busy getting the full interview up. As Pyt opined, it's kinda weird that rpgsite.net gets an exclusive interview with Hashimoto (rather than, say, IGN), but nor do I see any positive indication that this is fake. I doubt the reporter in question even knows about the C&D we received, but I haven't investigated the site too thoroughly yet.
It'd be great if this were not an exclusive interview but other gaming sites/mags were present (and thus we could vet one source against the others). From the article, I'm not sure one way or another though. I hope I get a reply back.