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‘A Beautiful Place That Has a Dragon’: Where Hurricane Risk Meets Booming Growth
Hurricanes have always struck the shores of the United States.
But in recent decades, the combination of climate change and a growing coastal population has made them far more damaging — particularly in one corner of the Atlantic coast.
These two metros, known for their striking coastlines, have been regularly battered by hurricanes this century.
They also have something else in common: Both are among the fastest-growing coastal metros in the United States since 2000.
The hurricanes keep coming, and the people, too: The fastest-growing places along the Atlantic coast this century are also among the most hurricane-prone.
Between 2016 and 2022, the five hurricanes that hit the Carolinas cost the two states over $33 billion in damages in current dollars, displaced hundreds of thousands of people and led to the deaths of more than 90, government data shows.
There’s every reason to expect more damage in coming years: A warming climate adds moisture to the air, unlocking the potential for wetter and more powerful storms. And rising sea levels make storm surges more damaging and coastal flooding more frequent.
And the newcomers will keep coming: One 2022 study projected that by 2050, population growth will increase the number of Americans exposed to flooding nearly four times as much as climate change will alone.
Simply put, there are many more people living along the paths of hurricanes than ever before. And this booming coastal population is, by many accounts, a larger contributor to rising hurricane risks than climate change.
“It’s always climate change plus something, and we’re moving more people into harm’s way than out,” said Kathie Dello, North Carolina’s state climatologist.
Kure Beach, N.C., at low tide.
Local officials say they are struggling to keep up with the growth. They can try to manage the floodplain, communicate the risks, regulate construction and prepare for disasters. But the one thing they can’t seem to do is stop people from moving here.
Many retirees are drawn to the Carolinas’ beaches and waterways, moderate temperatures and low taxes. Between 1990 and 2020, the number of people 65 and older grew by nearly 450 percent combined in Horry County, S.C., and adjoining Brunswick County, N.C.
When Gail Hart moved from Arizona to retire in Wilmington, N.C., in 2017, she hadn’t considered the hurricane risk. “I wanted to be near a beach,” she said. “I wanted a community.”
Gail Hart with her dog Tula in the Del Webb retirement community in Wilmington, N.C.
The next year, Hurricane Florence made landfall in the Wilmington metro area. Many neighborhoods flooded. In some places, three feet of water entered homes. Emergency officials rescued over a thousand residents.
Ms. Hart evacuated. She was fortunate: Her home suffered only minor wind damage. But the experience changed her view of living there. She installed storm shutters and a generator, and bought flood insurance. And yet, like so many others, she has stayed despite the storm risks.
“I don’t let it affect my life unless there’s a hurricane coming,” she said.
Ms. Hart is far from alone. When she arrived, there were about a dozen homes in her retirement community. Today there are over 500.
In a retirement community being built across the road, acres of pine forests have been cleared to develop homes along the Cape Fear River.
New homes on the banks of the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, N.C.
Nearby, marshland with ghost forests of dead trees was up for sale as “riverfront condo land.”
Ghost forests are what remains of woodlands when saltwater poisons the roots of trees.
Wilmington is part of New Hanover County, the most densely populated of the state’s coastal counties. Nearly 40 percent of its homes risk being severely affected by flooding in the next 30 years, according to the First Street Foundation.
“There’s just not a lot of area left,” said Steven Still, director of emergency services for the county. “So you’re developing in the fringe areas.”
The escalating costs of storms raise a difficult question for these growing coastal communities: How do you balance growth with safety?
The combination of climate change and development in risky areas is making it “a huge challenge” to keep residents safe, said Amanda Martin, North Carolina’s chief resilience officer.
Coastal Carolina counties have some of the highest hurricane frequencies in the country.
Source: Upshot analysis of the National Hurricane Center’s Atlantic hurricane database
The map shows the number of Atlantic hurricanes whose paths came within 60 nautical miles (69 miles) of each county.Hurricanes near U.S. counties, 1950-2022
It’s not just that people are moving to hurricane-prone areas. The growth itself can make flooding worse. Cutting down trees and paving over wetlands takes away open land that would otherwise absorb rainfall.
“We just seem to be going through this vicious cycle that is becoming more vicious with the amount of people and infrastructure we put in these areas,” Mr. Still said.
Federal law permits people to build in flood zones, so long as they meet certain minimum standards. In return, the government offers them flood insurance through a federal program that is over $20 billion in debt — largely due to escalating hurricane damages.
While the National Flood Insurance Program was originally intended to discourage floodplain development, in practice it has done the opposite by removing a lot of the financial risk involved, said Jenny Brennan, a climate analyst at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
States have a few options to discourage people from building in flood zones. They can create more stringent building requirements, or they can buy up and preserve undeveloped land. But these measures are expensive, and rely on political will or the willingness of landowners to sell.
One way that states can move residents out of harm’s way is by offering to buy out their homes and permanently converting that land to open space. But a study this year found that for every home bought out in North Carolina between 1996 and 2017, more than 10 new ones were built in the state’s floodplains.
The growth also makes it more difficult to evacuate when storms strike. In these booming coastal counties, residents and local officials say that roads and bridges are not keeping pace with the growth.
“Our biggest problem is our infrastructures not being able to keep up,” said David McIntire, the deputy director of emergency management for Brunswick County, the fastest-growing coastal county in North Carolina this century and part of the Wilmington metro.
The state has undertaken a multiyear project to add two lanes to Highway 211, the main evacuation route for the region. Mr. McIntire said the state and local departments were “having to play catch-up” after years of failing to plan ahead.
In neighboring New Hanover County, his counterpart Mr. Still is grappling with a shortage of affordable housing, which he said was making it “exponentially difficult” to shelter people displaced by disasters.
After a disaster, the surge in demand for short-term housing drives up already high rents. Poorer residents often rely on the state and local governments for assistance with evacuation and housing.
The problem lies in where to house them. “If there is zero housing availability in the community right now,” Mr. Still said, “where do you put 100,000 people?”
The housing crunch is one of many tensions playing out between wealthy coastal communities and those who live nearby.
April O’Leary lives in Conway, S.C., an inland city in Horry County, a half-hour drive from Myrtle Beach.
The county makes up the Myrtle Beach metro area, which was the fastest-growing coastal metro nationally between 2000 and 2020 and is one of the fastest-growing places in the country annually. And the growth is projected to continue.
Horry County is large and flat: Nearly a quarter of its land lies within a floodplain.
In inland towns like Conway, S.C., floodwaters can stay long after a hurricane is gone.
After Hurricane Florence made landfall, it took about a week for the rainwater to flow down to Conway. But the water stayed for over a week.
“It sits for a while and it just destroys everything,” Ms. O’Leary said.
Water entered her home, flooding the first floor and a bedroom. Her husband and son evacuated to Myrtle Beach, while she stayed for a few days to document the floods.
Afterward, there were large piles of debris lining street after street in her neighborhood, filled with ruined flooring, kitchen cabinets and bathroom fixtures.
When her son’s elementary school reopened and he saw the devastation in the neighborhood, she said he stopped smiling and became quieter for months.
Down the street from April O’Leary’s home, in Conway, S.C., the flood water line from Hurricane Florence was still visible.
After the flooding, Ms. O’Leary founded Horry County Rising, a political organization that campaigned for the county to adopt stricter regulations for floodplain construction. Much of the flooding in the Carolinas during Hurricane Florence occurred outside of federal flood zones, where few people have flood insurance or homes that are protected from flooding.
In 2021, the county expanded its flood zone boundaries to include places that flooded during Hurricane Florence. And it required new homes built there to have their lowest floor three feet above the high water mark.
The changes applied to all unincorporated parts of the county. But they faced pushback from local developers because of raised building costs. The county recently voted to lower the height requirements to two feet, after legal pressure from a developer.
The flooding and growth also affect rural communities that have been rooted in the Carolinas for generations. In Bucksport, S.C., a small inland town in Horry County, Kevin Mishoe is a third-generation farmer and former chair of the Association for the Betterment of Bucksport.
He said the newer building codes would pay dividends in future floods, but they would also make home ownership far more expensive for people in lower-income communities like Bucksport.
Bucksport sits between two major rivers, nestled against wetlands and tidal forests. Mr. Mishoe lives with his wife in a mobile home that flooded during Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018.
Gina and Kevin Mishoe outside their home in Bucksport, S.C.
Mr. Mishoe says he believes banks are denying loans to residents because of their location in a floodplain, a phenomenon he called “bluelining.”
Meanwhile, he said, locals are being “bombarded” with offers from developers and private equity companies to buy their land.
“All of a sudden land that you’re telling us is almost worthless because you’re in a flood zone, everybody’s trying to buy,” he said.
The area is considered prime real estate because of its access to water. This year, the county expressed support for a highway that would connect Myrtle Beach to inland parts of the county. The highway is expected to cut through Bucksport and its adjoining wetlands, and bring added development to the region.
The town’s residents emphatically do not want to sell their land, Mr. Mishoe said. Their ancestors have held on to this land for generations, and they intend to stay.
Bucksport’s flooding problem began in 2015. But there are coastal Carolina communities that have endured regular hurricanes for over a century.
Karen Willis Amspacher lives on Harkers Island in Carteret County, N.C. — one of the most hurricane-prone counties in the country.
The island is part of a string of low-lying rural communities near the Outer Banks that locals call Down East. The communities are connected by Highway 70, a dredged road that floods several times a year.
Highway 70 outside Stacy, N.C., in Carteret County.
Ms. Amspacher is a fifth-generation resident of the island and the director of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum. There are a lot of newer residents, she said, moving into large houses on stilts, with generators and flood insurance. Some houses are second homes or vacation properties.
The construction boom has driven up costs for locals. “The fear and threat of sea level rise or storms doesn’t hinder any of it,” she said.
A raised home under construction on Harkers Island, N.C.
A new bridge under construction earlier this year will connect Harkers Island to the mainland, to improve evacuations during hurricanes.
While the new homes may be safer, Ms. Amspacher said, many of the newcomers are isolated from the emotional trauma that her community experiences during a hurricane.
“This is a piece of property to them,” she said. “It’s not their family inheritance. It’s not their home. It’s not where they hope their children will stay and grow up.”
Ms. Amspacher has had to evacuate her home in three past hurricanes. But she’s not planning to leave for the next one. She said staying during storms was a way to protect property from damage, and was part of her community’s cultural identity.
“These hurricanes make these communities what we are,” she said.
Back in Wilmington, Sharon Valentine is also no stranger to hurricanes. She owned a large animal farm near Fayetteville, N.C., which was devastated by Hurricane Fran in 1996.
So when she and her partner decided to retire in Wilmington’s Del Webb community in 2017, they knew the risks.
Many others have followed since. “There’s a mass migration down here,” she said.
Ms. Valentine organizes annual hurricane training for these newer arrivals. The community members have evacuation plans and look out for one another.
Sharon Valentine and Leonard Bull keep an emergency go bag, which they call a “calamity box,” at their home in Wilmington.
She, too, said the local infrastructure hadn’t kept up with growth. There are two small bridges on either end of River Road that serve as the main evacuation routes for her community. She is concerned that they may flood in a major storm.
“If we really ever have a bad one, we’re going to have to get out of here,” Ms. Valentine said.
Still, when she thinks about all the newcomers, she sympathizes with their reasons for moving here.
“It is a beautiful place that has a dragon emerge periodically,” she said. “And so you weigh your risks.”
Bezos, Zuckerberg and Coke at the inauguration
Corporate America had already raced to donate big sums to Donald Trump’s record-breaking inaugural fund. Now some of its leaders appear eager to jockey for prominent positions at the inauguration next week.
It’s a new reminder that for some of the nation’s biggest businesses, forging close ties to a president-elect who is promising hard-hitting policies like tariffs is a priority this time around.
Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are expected to be on the inauguration dais, according to NBC News, alongside Elon Musk and several cabinet picks.
The presence of Musk isn’t a surprise, given the Tesla chief’s significant support of and huge influence over Trump. But the other tech moguls have only more recently been seen as supporters of the administration. (Indeed, Bezos frequently sparred with Trump during his first presidential term.)
It’s the latest effort by Bezos and Zuckerberg to burnish their Trump credentials. At the DealBook Summit in December, Bezos — whose Amazon has faced scrutiny under the Biden administration and whose Blue Origin is hoping to win government rocket contracts — said that he was “very hopeful” about Trump’s efforts to reduce regulation.
And Zuckerberg recently announced significant changes to Meta’s content moderation policy, including relaxing restrictions on speech seen as protecting groups including L.G.B.T.Q. people that won praise from Trump and other conservatives. On the inauguration front, Zuckerberg is also co-hosting a reception alongside the longtime Trump backers Miriam Adelson, Tilman Fertitta and Todd Ricketts.
Both tech moguls have visited Mar-a-Lago since the election, with Zuckerberg having done so more than once.
Coca-Cola took a different tack. The drinks giant’s C.E.O., James Quincey, gave Trump what an aide called the “first ever Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle.”
More broadly, business leaders want a piece of the inauguration action. The Times previously reported that the Trump inaugural fund had surpassed $170 million, a record, and that even major donors have been wait-listed for events.
Others are throwing unofficial events around Washington, including an “Inaugural Crypto Ball” that will feature Snoop Dogg, with tickets starting at $5,000, The Wall Street Journal reports.
It’s a reminder that C.E.O.s are reading the room, and preparing their companies for a president who has proposed creating an “External Revenue Service” to oversee what he has promised will be wide-ranging tariffs.
David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser who’s hosting a pre-inauguration event, told The Journal, “This is the world order, and if we’re going to succeed, we need to get with the world order.”
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In other Trump news: The president-elect is expected to appear via videoconference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which starts on Inauguration Day, according to Semafor.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
Investors brace for the latest inflation data. The Consumer Price Index report, due out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, is expected to show that inflation ticked up last month, most likely because of climbing food and fuel costs. Global bond markets have been rattled as slow progress on slowing inflation has prompted the Fed to slash its forecast for interest rate cuts.
More Trump cabinet picks will appear before the Senate on Wednesday. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the choice for secretary of state, is expected to field questions about his views on the Middle East, Ukraine and China, but is expected to be confirmed. Russell Vought, the pick to run the Office of Management and Budget, will most likely be asked about his advocacy for drastically shrinking the federal government, a key Trump objective. And Sean Duffy, the Fox Business host chosen to lead the Transportation Department, will probably face questions on how he would oversee matters including aviation safety and autonomous vehicles, the latter of which is a priority for Elon Musk.
Meta plans to lay off another 5 percent of its employees. Mark Zuckerberg, the tech giant’s C.E.O., told staff members to prepare for “extensive performance-based cuts” as the company braces for “an intense year.” The social media giant faces intense competition in the race to commercialize artificial intelligence.
A new bill would give TikTok a reprieve from a ban in the United States. Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he planned to introduce the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, which would give the video platform 270 additional days to be divested from its Chinese parent, ByteDance before being blacklisted. It’s the latest effort to buy TikTok time, as the app faces a Jan. 19 deadline set by a law; President-elect Donald Trump has opposed the potential ban as well.
A question of succession
JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock, the giant money manager, just reported earnings. (In short: Both handily beat analyst expectations.)
But the Wall Street giants are likely to face questioning on a particular issue on Wednesday: Which top lieutenants are in line to replace their larger-than-life C.E.O.s, Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink.
Who’s out:
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Daniel Pinto, who had long been Dimon’s right-hand man, said he would officially drop his responsibilities as JPMorgan’s C.O.O. in June and retire at the end of 2026. Jenn Piepszak, the co-C.E.O. of the company’s core commercial and investment bank, has become C.O.O.
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And Mark Wiedman, the head of BlackRock’s global client business and a top contender to succeed Fink, is planning to leave, according to news reports.
What Wall Street is gossiping about JPMorgan: Even in taking the C.O.O. role, JPMorgan said that Piepszak wasn’t interested in succeeding Dimon “at this time.” DealBook hears that while she genuinely appears not to want to pursue the top job, the phrasing covers her in case she changes her mind.
For now, that means the most likely candidates for the top spot are Marianne Lake, the company’s head of consumer and community banking; Troy Rohrbaugh, the other co-head of the commercial and investment bank; and Doug Petno, a co-head of global banking.
The buzz around BlackRock: Wiedman reportedly didn’t want to keep waiting to succeed Fink and is expected to seek a C.E.O. position elsewhere. (So sudden was his departure that he’s forfeiting about $8 million worth of stock options and, according to The Wall Street Journal, he doesn’t have another job lined up yet.)
Fink said on CNBC on Wednesday that Wiedman’s departure had been in the works for some time, with the executive having expressed a desire to leave about six months ago.
Other candidates to take over for Fink include Martin Small, BlackRock’s C.F.O.; Rob Goldstein, the firm’s C.O.O.; and Rachel Lord, the head of international.
But Dimon and Fink aren’t going anywhere just yet. Dimon, 68, said only last year that he might not be in the role in five years. And Fink, 72, said in July that he was working on succession planning: “When I do believe the next generation is ready, I’m out.”
The S.E.C. gets in a final shot at Musk
Another battle between Elon Musk and the S.E.C. erupted on Tuesday, with the agency suing the tech mogul over his 2022 purchase of Twitter.
It’s unclear what happens to the lawsuit once President-elect Donald Trump, who counts Musk as a close ally, takes office. But the agency’s reputation as an independent watchdog may be at stake.
A recap: The S.E.C. accused Musk of violating securities laws in his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.
The agency said that Musk had failed to disclose his Twitter ownership stake for a pivotal 11-day stretch before revealing his intentions to purchase the company. That breach allowed him to buy up at least $150 million worth of Twitter shares at a lower price — to the detriment of existing shareholders, the agency argues.
The S.E.C. isn’t just seeking to fine Musk. It wants him to pay back the windfall. “That’s unusual,” Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane Law School, told DealBook.
Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer, called the latest action a “sham” and accused the agency of waging a “multiyear campaign of harassment” against him.
The showdown sets up a tough question for the S.E.C. Will Paul Atkins, the president-elect’s widely respected pick to lead the agency, drop the case? Such a move could call the bedrock principle of S.E.C. independence into question.
Jay Clayton, who led the agency during Trump’s first term, earned the respect of the business community for running it in a largely drama-free manner. It was under Clayton that the S.E.C. sued Musk over his statements about taking Tesla private.
Musk, who is set to become Trump’s cost-cutting czar and is expected to have office space in the White House complex, has called for the “comprehensive overhaul” of agencies like the S.E.C. The billionaire said he would also like to see “punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.”
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In related news: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One, accusing it of cheating its depositors out of $2 billion in interest payments.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
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DAZN, the streaming network backed by the billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik, is closing in on funding from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund as the kingdom continues to expand its sports footprint. (NYT)
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The Justice Department sued KKR, accusing the investment giant of withholding information during government reviews for several of its deals. KKR filed a countersuit. (Bloomberg)
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OpenAI added Adebayo Ogunlesi, the billionaire co-founder of the infrastructure investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners, to its board. (FT)
Politics and policy
Best of the rest
We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.
As wildfires continue to burn around Southern California, thousands of business owners, homeowners and renters are confronting the daunting challenge of rebuilding from the ashes. For some number of them, the road ahead will be all the more difficult because they didn’t have any or enough insurance to cover their losses. For them, the U.S. Small Business Administration is a possible lifeline.
The SBA, which offers emergency loans to businesses, homeowners, renters and nonprofits, is among the few relief options for those who don’t have insurance or are underinsured. Uninsured Angelenos can also apply for disaster assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.
The current wildfires are ravaging a state that was already in the midst of a home insurance crisis. Thousands of homeowners have lost their insurance in recent years as providers pull out of fire-prone areas and jack up their prices in the face of rising risk.
“For those who are not going to get that insurance payout, this is available,” Small Business Administration head Isabella Casillas Guzman said in an interview during a recent trip to the fire areas. “The loans are intended to fill gaps, and that is very broad.”
About one-third of businesses don’t have insurance and three-quarters are underinsured, Guzman said.
“There will be residual effects around the whole community,” she said. “Insurance will not cover this disaster.”
Businesses, nonprofits and small agricultural cooperatives can apply for an economic injury loan or a physical damage loan through SBA. Homeowners are eligible for physical damage loans. Economic injury loans are intended to help businesses meet ordinary financial demands, while physical damage loans provide funds for repairs and restoration. People can apply online and loans must be repaid within 30 years.
Renters can receive up to $100,000 in assistance, homeowners up to $500,000 and businesses up to $2 million, according to Guzman. Homeowners and renters who cannot get access to credit elsewhere can qualify for loans with a interest rate of 2.5%. The SBA determines an applicant has no credit available elsewhere if they do not have other funds to pay for disaster recovery and cannot borrow from nongovernment sources.
Interest rates for homeowners and renters who do have access to credit elsewhere are just over 5%. Loans for businesses could come with interest rates of 4% or 8% depending on whether the business has other credit options.
An applicant must show they are able to repay their loan and have a credit history acceptable to the SBA in order to be approved. The loans became available following President Biden’s declaration of a major disaster in California.
“We’ve already received hundreds of applications from individuals and businesses interested in exploring additional support,” Guzman said. “We know the economic disruption may not be contained to the footprint of any evacuation zones or power outages.”
People who don’t have insurance or whose insurance doesn’t cover the entirety of their losses are eligible for loans, Guzman said. While many will use the funds to start from scratch after losing their property to the fires, businesses that are still standing can also apply for support to cover lost revenue.
Guzman was not able to estimate the total value of loans they expect to offer in California but said the organization is on solid financial footing after temporarily running out of funds in October.
“Funding has been replenished by Congress, and we expect to be able to coordinate closely with Congress,” Guzman said. “We’re fully funded and in a good position to provide support.”
In a lively Supreme Court argument on Tuesday that included references to cookies, cocktails and toxic mushrooms, the justices tried to find the line between misleading statements and outright lies in the case of a Chicago politician convicted of making false statements to bank regulators.
The case concerned Patrick Daley Thompson, a former Chicago alderman who is the grandson of one former mayor, Richard J. Daley, and the nephew of another, Richard M. Daley. He conceded that he had misled the regulators but said his statements fell short of the outright falsehoods he said were required to make them criminal.
The justices peppered the lawyers with colorful questions that tried to tease out the difference between false and misleading statements.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked whether a motorist pulled over on suspicion of driving while impaired said something false by stating that he had had one cocktail while omitting that he had also drunk four glasses of wine.
Caroline A. Flynn, a lawyer for the federal government, said that a jury could find the statement to be false because “the officer was asking for a complete account of how much the person had had to drink.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked about a child who admitted to eating three cookies when she had consumed 10.
Ms. Flynn said context mattered.
“If the mom had said, ‘Did you eat all the cookies,’ or ‘how many cookies did you eat,’ and the child says, ‘I ate three cookies’ when she ate 10, that’s a false statement,” Ms. Flynn said. “But, if the mom says, ‘Did you eat any cookies,’ and the child says three, that’s not an understatement in response to a specific numerical inquiry.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked whether it was false to label toxic mushrooms as “a hundred percent natural.” Ms. Flynn did not give a direct response.
The case before the court, Thompson v. United States, No. 23-1095, started when Mr. Thompson took out three loans from Washington Federal Bank for Savings between 2011 and 2014. He used the first, for $110,000, to finance a law firm. He used the next loan, for $20,000, to pay a tax bill. He used the third, for $89,000, to repay a debt to another bank.
He made a single payment on the loans, for $390 in 2012. The bank, which did not press him for further payments, went under in 2017.
When the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and a loan servicer it had hired sought repayment of the loans plus interest, amounting to about $270,000, Mr. Thompson told them he had borrowed $110,000, which was true in a narrow sense but incomplete.
After negotiations, Mr. Thompson in 2018 paid back the principal but not the interest. More than two years later, federal prosecutors charged him with violating a law making it a crime to give “any false statement or report” to influence the F.D.I.C.
He was convicted and ordered to repay the interest, amounting to about $50,000. He served four months in prison.
Chris C. Gair, a lawyer for Mr. Thompson, said his client’s statements were accurate in context, an assertion that met with skepticism. Justice Elena Kagan noted that the jury had found the statements were false and that a ruling in Mr. Thompson’s favor would require a court to rule that no reasonable juror could have come to that conclusion.
Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh said that issue was not before the court, which had agreed to decide the legal question of whether the federal law, as a general matter, covered misleading statements. Lower courts, they said, could decide whether Mr. Thompson had been properly convicted.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked for an example of a misleading statement that was not false. Mr. Gair, who was presenting his first Supreme Court argument, responded by talking about himself.
“If I go back and change my website and say ‘40 years of litigation experience’ and then in bold caps say ‘Supreme Court advocate,’” he said, “that would be, after today, a true statement. It would be misleading to anybody who was thinking about whether to hire me.”
Justice Alito said such a statement was, at most, mildly misleading. But Justice Kagan was impressed.
“Well, it is, though, the humblest answer I’ve ever heard from the Supreme Court podium,” she said, to laughter. “So good show on that one.”
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