Does 18 U. S. C. § 1014 criminalize statements that are misleading but not false? The case involves whether a defendant can be convicted under this statute for making a statement that is literally true but omits material facts. Specifically, the Court must determine if "false statement" encompasses "misleading representations."

• His statements were literally true because he had in fact borrowed $110,000 from the bank.
• A conviction for false statements cannot be sustained where the alleged statements are literally true, even if they are misleading.
• The statute requires literal falsity rather than mere misleading implications.

• The terms "false" and "misleading" have long been considered synonyms, citing Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms (1942).
• The word "false" can be understood to mean "deceitful," as noted in Black's Law Dictionary (3d ed. 1933).
• The use of the word "any" before "false statement" provides an expansive scope to the statute.
• Precedent in Kay v. United States suggests that predecessor statutes secured protection against both false and misleading representations.

• Section 1014, which prohibits “knowingly mak[ing] any false statement,” does not criminalize statements that are misleading but not false.
• The Court reasons that "false" means "not true," citing Black's Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024 and 4th ed. 1951), and notes that a statement can be true yet still be misleading, as recognized in Peel v. Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Comm'n of Ill. and Victor v. Nebraska.
• The Court clarifies that the word "any" is expansive but not transformative; it does not expand the definition of "false" to include all misleading statements, relying on Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Rucker, Freeman v. Quicken Loans, Inc., and Brogan v. United States.
• Statutory context indicates that Congress knows how to prohibit "misleading" statements because other Title 18 statutes—such as 18 U. S. C. § 1038(a), § 1365(b), and § 1515(b)—and the Securities Act of 1933 expressly use both "false" and "misleading."
• To interpret "false" as including "misleading" would render the specific inclusion of "misleading" in those other statutes superfluous, violating the principle in Gustafson v. Alloyd Co.
• Historical context shows that none of the 11 predecessor provisions consolidated into § 1014 used the word “misleading,” while other contemporaneous statutes did, proving Congress knew how to cover such statements per Custis v. United States.
• Precedent supports this reading: United States v. Wells held that § 1014 does not incorporate a materiality requirement because it is not mentioned in the text, and Williams v. United States established that a statement must be capable of being characterized as “false” and not “true.”
• The Court rejects the respondent's reliance on Kay v. United States, finding that Kay described the intent to mislead rather than establishing that misleading statements were independently unlawful.