Nobody is perfect. Yang and t' Hooft are certainly not exceptions. You may not believe it, but 't Hooft's problem is that he does not understand the principle of causality adequately [1]. Apparently, there is at least an exception to your rules. 't Hooft is a very good mathematician, but his physical understanding needs great improvements. (In my papers, I have criticized 9 Nobel Laureates on general relativity.) Both Yang and 't Hooft do not understand Einstein's equivalence principle.

If you point out somebody is wrong, as Planck pointed out, it is unrealistic to expect this person agrees with you. Thus,your aim should be to convince the others. If this person is also convinced, then you are very lucky.

Reference
1.C. Y. Lo, The Gravitational “Plane Waves” of Liu and Zhou and the Nonexistence of Dynamic Solutions for Einstein’s Equation, Astrophys. Space Sci., 306: 205-215 (2006) (DOI 10.1007/s10509-006-9221-x).