Editor’s note

On Monday’s Op-Ed page, Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, wrote that at a meeting between Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Durbin had asked Roberts what he would do if the law required a ruling that conflicted with his Catholic faith.

Roberts responded, according to Turley, that he might have to recuse himself in such cases. Turley said he heard about the conversation from “two people who attended the meeting.”

Tuesday, Durbin’s office said the story was inaccurate.

Aides acknowledged that a question about faith and public policy had been asked, and that Roberts had discussed recusals -- but they said that the recusal answer wasn’t in response to the question about faith.

Turley, however, says it was Durbin who gave him the original information in an on-the-record conversation. Turley says he then confirmed the substance of that conversation with another person who had been at the meeting.

Durbin’s office understood that Turley was writing the article and expressed no concern about its accuracy when he explained exactly what he was writing, according to Turley.

He says that he has notes of each of those conversations, and that he stands by what he wrote.