For me that line is probably different... it's being "evil" in a malicious or sadistic sense - actually causing harm to people, enjoying their suffering, deliberately destroying lives. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Putin - but not just mass murderers, also the everyday sadists and abusers who get off on hurting others.

Timothy C May was obviously intentionally provocative and later paranoid, but I don't believe he was evil in that sense. And that Chomsky became friends at his 84 years (!) with some malicious person - that doesn't prove anything about his life's work or ideas.

I really don't think this digging into people's pasts makes sense.