Last week a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Thompson v. United States, 2025 WL 876266 (2025), holding that a statement that is literally true but allegedly misleading, is not a “false statement” under 18 U.S.C. § 1014. Thompson demonstrates the Court’s continued interest in the area of white-collar crime.
The Appellant was convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1014, which prohibits “knowingly mak[ing] any false statement” to influence the FDIC’s action on any loan. Appellant had taken out three loans from the same bank totaling $219,000. The bank subsequently failed, and the FDIC assumed responsibility for collecting Appellant’s outstanding loan payments. When contacted by the FDIC about the amount of his debt, Appellant, on a recorded line, stated that there was a discrepancy with the amount the FDIC was claiming he owed ($219,000), stating, “I borrowed the money, I owe the money—but I borrowed … I think it was $110,000.” One of Appellant’s loans had in fact been for $110,000. Appellant was tried and convicted based on that statement. The Court found that while Appellant’s statement was misleading, it wasn’t necessarily false as is required by the statute.
The entire Court reasoned that “A misleading statement can be true. And a true statement is obviously not false. So basic logic dictates that at least some misleading statements are not false.” The Court provided the following illustrative examples of literally true, but misleading statements:
- If a tennis player says she “won the championship” when her opponent forfeited, her statement—even if true—might be misleading because it could lead people to think she had won a contested match.
- If a doctor tells a patient, “I’ve done a hundred of these surgeries,” when 99 of those patients died, the statement—even if true—would be misleading because it might lead people to think those surgeries were successful.
The Court found significance in the fact that the statute criminalized only “false statements” and does not contain the word “misleading:”
Statutory context confirms that §1014 does not cover all misleading statements. Again, the statute uses the word “false.” It does not use “misleading.” Many other statutes do, including other criminal statutes in Title 18 of the U. S. Code. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 1038(a) (“convey false or misleading information”); §1365(b) (“renders materially false or misleading the labeling of … a consumer product”); §1515(b) (“making a false or misleading statement”); see also Securities Act of 1933, 48 Stat. 84–85, as amended, 15 U.S.C. §77q(a)(2) (prohibiting obtaining property through “any untrue statement of a material fact” or “any omission” that renders a statement “misleading”). Interpreting the word “false” to include “misleading” would make the inclusion of “misleading” in those statutes superfluous.
The Court acknowledged that the context surrounding literally true representations is still relevant to assessing whether a false statement has been made, and thus remanded the matter to the Seventh Circuit for a determination as to whether a reasonable jury could find that Appellant’s statements were false or simply misleading.
Thompson reflects a continuing trend by the Court to push back against a broader reading of federal fraud and public corruption statutes by prosecutors. The Court’s holding here will inevitably lead to further pushback on expansive readings of federal criminal and civil fraud statutes by prosecutors and plaintiffs, and embolden further challenges to future prosecutions based on false statement allegations. Next in line for the Court is Kousisis v. United States, 23-909, in which the Court will decide whether deception to induce a commercial exchange can constitute mail or wire fraud, even if inflicting economic harm on the alleged victim was not the object of the scheme.
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