A long article in Sunday’s New York Times contends that Dallas real-estate developer Harlan Crow’s financing of a museum about the culture and history of Pin Point, Georgia—Justice Thomas’s birthplace—“raises the sharpest questions yet … about Justice Thomas’s extrajudicial activities and about the extent to which the justices should remain exempt from the code of conduct for federal judges.” But the article badly misses its mark. Consider:

1. The Code of Conduct for United States Judges—which, as the article notes, does not formally apply to Supreme Court justices—sets forth canons of ethical conduct that are reasonably looked to, at least presumptively, as a benchmark for the conduct of justices (even if one reserves the possibility that those canons might apply somewhat differently to justices or that some of the sub-rules inevitably involve arbitrary line-drawing).

Canon 4 states that a “judge may engage in extrajudicial activities, including law-related pursuits and civic, charitable, educational [and other specified types of] activities,” but that “a judge should not participate in extrajudicial activities that detract from the dignity of the judge’s office, interfere with the performance of the judge’s official duties, reflect adversely on the judge’s impartiality, lead to frequent disqualification, or violate the limitations set forth [in Canon 4’s sub-rules].” Canon 4.C in turn states:

A judge may assist nonprofit law-related, civic, charitable, educational, religious, or social organizations in planning fund-raising activities and may be listed as an officer, director, or trustee…. Otherwise, a judge should not personally participate in fund-raising activities, solicit funds for any organization, or use or permit the use of the prestige of judicial office for that purpose.

According to the article, Justice Thomas volunteered to put the owner of an old cannery site “in touch with” Harlan Crow about the owner’s interest in preserving the site—and evidently followed through on his offer; Crow financed the purchase and restoration of the site, including a museum about Pin Point; and the museum “has become a pet project of Justice Thomas’s.” In other words, we would seem to have Thomas engaging in a “civic, charitable, [or] educational activity” and playing a helpful role in “planning fund-raising” for the project by putting the organizers in touch with Crow. There is nothing in the article that indicates that Thomas “[o]therwise … personally participated in fund-raising activities.”

The article states that legal ethicists “differed on whether Justice Thomas’s dealings with Mr. Crow pose a problem under the code,” and it cites one legal ethicist for the proposition that Thomas “should not be directly involved in fund-raising activities.” But it would be charitable to that legal ethicist to assume that she meant by her quote merely to summarize (even if somewhat ambiguously) Canon 4.C. It’s far from clear that she was maintaining that Thomas had violated her proposition. (And if she was, it’s far from clear what her factual assumptions about “Justice Thomas’s dealings with Mr. Crow” were.)

2. The article struggles to insinuate that Thomas’s friendship with Crow has created conflicts of interest for Thomas. Here’s what it asserts:

Mr. Crow has not personally been a party to Supreme Court litigation, but his companies have been involved in federal court cases, including four that went to the appellate level. And he has served on the boards of two conservative organizations involved in filing supporting briefs in cases before the Supreme Court. One of them, the American Enterprise Institute, with Mr. Crow as a trustee, gave Justice Thomas a bust of Lincoln valued at $15,000 and praised his jurisprudence at an awards gala in 2001.

The institute’s Project on Fair Representation later filed briefs in several cases, and in 2006 the project brought a lawsuit challenging federal voting rights laws, a case in which Justice Thomas filed a lone dissent, embracing the project’s arguments. The project director, an institute fellow named Edward Blum, said the institute supported his research but did not finance the brief filings or the Texas suit, which was litigated pro bono by a former clerk of Justice Thomas’s.

“When it came time to file a lawsuit,” he said, “A.E.I. had no role in doing that.”

Relying in part on publicly available information and in part on trustworthy sources, I offer this correction of the article’s distortions:

AEI is not involved as an institution “in filing supporting briefs in cases before the Supreme Court.” Rather, individual AEI scholars may choose to submit briefs in their own name or on behalf of their specific projects. AEI’s board of trustees (of which Crow is one of more than two dozen members) plays no role in directing the research of AEI scholars, much less in approving their plans to submit amicus briefs. The absence of any institutional interest on AEI’s part in the amicus briefs that its scholars submit is amply shown by the fact that in at least one of the cases in which Edward Blum did submit an amicus brief, AEI’s Norm Ornstein submitted an amicus brief on the other side.

When Blum and his Project on Fair Representation filed its 2006 lawsuit, the Project on Fair Representation was no longer part of AEI.

The 2001 AEI event at which Justice Thomas received a bust of Lincoln was AEI’s annual dinner (not an “awards gala”), with Thomas as the featured speaker and recipient of the Francis Boyer Award. The bust that Thomas received was consistent with the usual honor accorded the award-winner.

Note, too, that the passage’s first sentence would more sensibly read: “Neither Mr. Crow personally nor his companies have been a party to Supreme Court litigation.” The “but” clause in the actual sentence falsely suggests a meaningful contrast with the first clause.

So where’s the actual or potential conflict?

3. The italicized passage below screamed to me that the article was not to be trusted:

It is not unusual for justices to accept gifts or take part in outside activities, some with political overtones.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer has attended Renaissance Weekend, a retreat for politicians, artists and media personalities that is a favorite of Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participated in a symposium sponsored by the National Organization for Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, and a philanthropic foundation once tried to give her a $100,000 achievement award. She instructed that the money be given to charity.

But in the case of Justice Thomas and his dealings with Mr. Crow, the ethical complications appear more complex.

I gather that what the reporter describes as a “symposium” is what I have much more accurately documented in these terms:

[A]s this Los Angeles Times article from 2004 discusses, Ginsburg authorized the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund to name a lecture series after her—the “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Distinguished Lecture Series on Women and the Law”—and she “gave opening remarks” and introduced the speaker at the fourth installment of that series. The NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund took part (and, now rebranded as Legal Momentum, continues to take part) regularly in litigation before the Supreme Court: its database identifies its participation in a dozen or so merits cases during the first four years of the lecture series (including Lawrence v. Texas, Grutter v. Bollinger, and Gratz v. Bollinger), and a similar or higher level of participation in subsequent years (including Gonzales v. Carhart). Ginsburg took part in all those cases.…

According to the LA Times article, legal ethicist Monroe Freedman said that Ginsburg’s affiliation with the lecture series “crosses the line,” and legal ethicist Geoffrey Hazard called it “inappropriate.” By contrast, legal ethicist Stephen Gillers called it “a judgment call.” For present purposes, I see no need to resolve whether Ginsburg acted unethically. My much more modest point is simply that nothing underlying even the wildest smears that the Left has directed against Thomas and Scalia comes anywhere close to Ginsburg’s conduct.

I likewise challenge anyone to argue that Thomas’s friendship with, and generous favors from, someone who has had no interest in cases before the Supreme Court is somehow more problematic than Ginsburg’s interaction with the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund.

I will also note that the article’s claim that Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia “attended a political retreat organized by the billionaire Koch brothers” is inconsistent with the account provided by a Supreme Court spokeswoman.