In a July 6 CNSNews.com article, Terry Jeffrey had claimed that “the House Judiciary Committee is launching an inquiry to probe the involvement that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan had in ‘health care legislation or litigation’ when she was serving as President Barack Obama’s solicitor general.” It turns out that’s false, and Jeffrey has been forced to correct it.
An new editor’s note at the top of the article reads:
As originally posted, this story used the word “investigation” in three places to describe what the House Judiciary Committee was initiating with Chairman Lamar Smith’s letter to the attorney general which is cited in this report. In those three places, the word “investigation” has been changed to “inquiry.” The committee requested a correction of the story, saying Smith’s letter asking for four categories of documents from the Justice Department as well as “witness interviews” is a “request for additional information” and not the beginning of a “formal investigation.” “The Committee has contacted the Justice Department for additional information, but we have not launched a formal investigation at this time,” a Judiciary Committee aide told CNSNews.com in an emailed statement.
Jeffrey, meanwhile, devotes a separate July 8 article to an expansion of the editor’s note.
Of course, in neither article does Jeffrey demonstrate any interest in inquiring if the House Judiciary Committee will investigate an apparent conflict of interest on health care reform regarding Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife has been involved in activism against the law. Jeffrey has long refused to report on this.