We will hear argument first this morning in case 23, 1095, Thompson v. United States.

Mr. Gare.

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, Section 1014 punishes only false statements,

not true but misleading ones. And we know that from the text, the context in the statutory

code, and this Court's precedence. At the outset,

at its most basic, the word false means not true. It is therefore impossible to suggest that

the statute that punishes false statements includes some types of true statements. False

and truant misleading are different concepts.

When Congress means to prohibit both, it does so explicitly using both terms as it has in over 100

places in the United States Code.

The government would put this all down to serial, thoughtless redundancy, but that violates the first principle of statutory interpretation to heed the text.

The courts below erroneously held that Section 1014 punishes misleading statements in addition to false ones.

We are asking the Court to correct that legal error and to remand to the courts below

for determination of whether Mr. Thompson's statements were false or only misleading.

I welcome the Court's questions.

How would you define false and how would you define or distinct and distinguish that from misleading?

A false statement is one that is not true when compared to the objective facts.

A misleading statement is a statement that depends on the reasonable hearer's understanding.

The term misleading is, by its nature, focuses on what the hearer hears.

The term false relates to an objective fact about the universe.

Do you think there could be overlap between the two?

There definitely is overlap, Your Honor.

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