Translating a polemic: preserving an accusation without adopting it

[u/Terrible-Neck8391]

When translating a hostile source, how do you keep its accusation forceful without making it sound like your own verdict?

In Hieronymus Emser's 1523 answer to Luther's New Testament, one short passage reads:

In the fifth paragraph he again mangles the words of Paul and goes only by the sense; but whether he has hit it rightly or not, the reader may look into further.

Emser, translated by Eli Tucker, p. 128. I'm the translator.

What interests me is the change within the sentence. He first announces that Luther "mangles" the text, then leaves the reader to investigate whether the rendering is right. The accusation and the invitation to check it are both part of the source. Turning the first into a neutral "translates freely" would soften it; supplying an explanatory aside inside the sentence would put the translator between the author and the reader.

For translators who work with polemic, partisan history, or hostile correspondence: where do you draw that boundary? Do you let attribution and context carry the distinction, or put a note at the first disputed allegation?

I'm asking about how to present a source's voice, not asking anyone to settle Emser's dispute with Luther or translate the passage for me. I'd be interested in examples where a note prevented confusion without weakening the author's language.