Cite as: 522 U. S. 23 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
Originally the statute did require proof of intent to 'in-jure or defraud' the bank or 'deceive' a bank officer but these words were inadvertently dropped in the course of a technical revision of the criminal code. To avoid making every unauthorized loan by a bank officer a willful misapplication of bank funds, courts . . . read the missing words back into the section." United States v. Bates, 852 F. 2d 212, 215 (1988).
Assuming, without deciding, that the Seventh Circuit's reading of § 656 is correct, § 1097(a) never contained, as § 656 did, an "intent to defraud" requirement, a requirement present from the start and still contained in § 1097(d). In short, there is here neither text nor history warranting the construction of § 1097(a) that Bates urges us to adopt.6
Nor does § 1097(a) set a "trap for the unwary," as the Seventh Circuit suggested § 656 would if read to render felonious "every unauthorized loan by a bank officer." See Bates, 852 F. 2d, at 215. Under the Seventh Circuit's construction, § 1097(a) catches only the transgressor who intentionally exercises unauthorized dominion over federally insured student loan funds for his own benefit or for the benefit of a third party. "[I]nnocent . . . maladministration of a business enterprise" or a use of funds that is simply "unwise," see Brief for Petitioner 5, does not fit within that construction.7
6 Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U. S. 135 (1994), does not bear on our decision today. Ratzlaf decided only, in the particular statutory context of currency structuring, that knowledge of illegality was an element of 31 U. S. C. § 5322(a) as that provision was then framed. Ratzlaf did not involve the question presented here regarding § 1097(a), which is whether, in addition to a knowledge requirement, the Government must allege and prove an "intent to injure or defraud."
7 The Seventh Circuit's "working definition" of § 1097(a) reads: "[W]illful misapplication under § 1097(a) requires the government to allege and prove that the defendant consciously, voluntarily, and intentionally exercised unauthorized control or dominion over federally provided or guaranteed Title IV funds that interfered with the rights of the funds' true owner(s), for the use and benefit of the defendant or a third person,
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