RUTHFULLY YOURS

Here’s an example from CNN (emphasis mine): “Justice Clarence Thomas disclosed Thursday that Republican megadonor Harlan Crow paid for private jet trips for Thomas in 2022 to attend a speech in Texas and a vacation at Crow’s luxurious New York estate, as ethics questions continue to rock the Supreme Court.”

What actually happened is too mundane to rock anything: The Judicial Conference of the U.S., which regulates judges’ financial disclosures, changed its rules regarding “transportation that substitutes for commercial transportation.” A private plane trip is now considered a gift, which is subject to disclosure, rather than “personal hospitality,” which isn’t. The rule took effect in March, and Justice Thomas complied with it for his 2022 form.

This week’s coverage is another demonstration that disclosure is a mug’s game. If you follow the rules perfectly, “ethics experts” will fault you for failing to disclose when it isn’t required and for what you disclose when it is. Gabe Roth, who heads an outfit called Fix the Court, tells CNN that although Justice Thomas “says he plans on more closely following the disclosure laws moving forward, his penchant for living a lifestyle few of us can only dream of [sic] is not reflected in today’s report.” Mr. Roth adds that the justice “should go back and amend earlier disclosures to recount the full extent of the lavish gifts he’s received over the years.” The connection with judicial ethics is unclear: As CNN notes in passing, Mr. Crow has never had business before the court.

Justice Thomas’s 2022 disclosure form also vindicates my reporting last April on a real-estate transaction that ProPublica—which styles itself “an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force”—attempted to spin into a scandal. In 2014 a company established by Mr. Crow purchased three Savannah, Ga., properties—two empty lots and Justice Thomas’s childhood home, where his mother still lives and which Mr. Crow intends to turn into a museum. Justice Thomas had inherited a one-third share of the properties when his maternal grandparents died. ProPublica’s April 13 story was titled “Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal.”

As I found in April, ProPublica’s headline was true as far as it went. Justice Thomas’s disclosure acknowledges: “Filer inadvertently failed to realize that the ‘sales transaction’ for the final disposition of the three properties triggered a new reportable transaction in 2014, even though this sale resulted in a capital loss.”

But the story erred in insinuating that Justice Thomas had committed other failures of disclosure. ProPublica led readers to believe Justice Thomas had previously disclosed his ownership of his mother’s home, then unaccountably dropped it from his form. In fact, as I surmised from the disclosures and Justice Thomas now officially reports, the ownership of that house didn’t need to be disclosed because it generated no rental income. ProPublica mixed it up with a different house, in Liberty County, Ga., which Justice Thomas properly stopped reporting when the meager rental income dried up.

ProPublica has yet to issue a correction. Jesse Eisinger, who oversees its Supreme Court coverage, emailed me on May 5: “Can you tell us what you regard as the factual errors?” When I sent him a link to my article, he wrote back: “I’m failing to see what words, phrases, or sentences you cite as factually inaccurate.”

Mr. Eisinger’s team did sloppy work. When I pointed that out, he responded with willful incomprehension. Journalism has no moral force unless it’s honest and attentive to accuracy.