Full opinion text
HOLMES, Circuit Judge. The False Claims Act (or the "Act") allows for the recovery of civil penalties and treble damages from anyone who defrauds the government by submitting fraudulent claims for payment. 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729 - 3733. To enforce its provisions, the Act empowers individuals to file suits on behalf of the government alleging that a third party made a fraudulent claim for payment to the government. Id. § 3730(b)(1). These suits are known as "qui tam " suits, and the individual plaintiffs are called "relators." Recognizing the risks relators face as prospective whistleblowers, the Act prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who try to stop violations of the Act. Id. § 3730(h). Julie Reed sued her former employer, KeyPoint Government Solutions, LLC ("KeyPoint"), for violating the False Claims Act. Her qui tam claims alleged that KeyPoint violated the Act by knowingly and fraudulently billing the government for work that was inadequately or improperly completed. Ms. Reed also claimed that KeyPoint fired her in retaliation for her efforts to stop KeyPoint's fraud. This case presents two overarching questions. First, did the district court err in granting summary judgment in KeyPoint's favor on Ms. Reed's qui tam claims? Second, did the district court err in dismissing Ms. Reed's retaliation claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure ("Rule") 12(b)(6) ? Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we hold that the district court erred in the first respect but not in the second. We therefore vacate the district court's order insofar as it granted summary judgment on Ms. Reed's qui tam claims and remand for further proceedings. We affirm the district court's order insofar as it dismissed Ms. Reed's retaliation claim. I This is a whistleblower case. The relevant background has three parts: (1) the statutory background, (2) the underlying (alleged) bad acts, and (3) the whistleblowing and ensuing procedural history. We recount each part below. A The False Claims Act "covers all fraudulent attempts to cause the government to pay out sums of money." United States ex rel. Conner v. Salina Reg'l Health Ctr., Inc. , 543 F.3d 1211, 1217 (10th Cir. 2008) (quoting United States ex rel. Boothe v. Sun Healthcare Grp., Inc. , 496 F.3d 1169, 1172 (10th Cir. 2007) ). It does so by permitting the recovery of civil penalties and treble damages from anyone who "knowingly presents ... a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval." 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(1)(A). Liability also attaches to anyone who "knowingly makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent claim." Id. § 3729(a)(1)(B). The Act's proscriptions may be effectuated in two ways. "First, the Government itself may" sue "the alleged false claimant" to remedy the fraud. Vt. Agency of Nat. Res. v. United States ex rel. Stevens , 529 U.S. 765, 769, 120 S.Ct. 1858, 146 L.Ed.2d 836 (2000). Second, "a private person (the relator) may bring a qui tam " suit on behalf of the government and also for herself alleging that a third party made fraudulent claims for payment to the government. Id. "As a bounty for identifying and prosecuting fraud," relators get to keep a portion "of any recovery they obtain." Boothe , 496 F.3d at 1172 (citing 31 U.S.C. § 3730(d) ). But there are limits to a relator's right to bring a qui tam suit. One such limit is "known as the public disclosure bar." Id. ; see State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. United States ex rel. Rigsby , 580 U.S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 436, 440, 196 L.Ed.2d 340 (2016) (describing the public disclosure bar as a threshold relators must pass for their qui tam suits to proceed). That bar compels courts to dismiss qui tam claims "if substantially the same allegations ... as alleged in the action or claim were publicly disclosed," unless the relator "is an original source of the information." 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A). The public disclosure bar aims to strike "the golden mean between" encouraging "whistle-blowing insiders with genuinely valuable information" to come forward while discouraging "opportunistic plaintiffs who have no significant information to contribute of their own." United States ex rel. Fine v. Sandia Corp. , 70 F.3d 568, 571 (10th Cir. 1995) (quoting United States ex rel. Springfield Terminal Ry. Co. v. Quinn , 14 F.3d 645, 649 (D.C. Cir. 1994) ). And because insiders might be reluctant to use these qui tam provisions due to fear of employer backlash, the False Claims Act protects whistleblowers from employer retaliation. See Potts v. Ctr. for Excellence in Higher Educ., Inc. , 908 F.3d 610, 613-14 (10th Cir. 2018) (discussing 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h) ). To qualify for whistleblower protection, an employee must engage in "protected activity." Armstrong v. Arcanum Grp., Inc. , 897 F.3d 1283, 1286 (10th Cir. 2018). Until 2009, protected activity included only "lawful acts done by the employee ... in furtherance of an action under this section [i.e., a qui tam suit]." 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h) (2008). But Congress amended the anti-retaliation provision in 2009 and 2010, and it now protects employees who take steps "in furtherance of" either a qui tam claim or "other efforts to stop 1 or more violations" of the Act. 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h)(1). A whistleblower who prevails on her retaliation claim is entitled to reinstatement, double back pay, litigation costs, and attorneys' fees. Id. § 3730(h)(2). The events giving rise to this litigation took place against this statutory backdrop. B 1 KeyPoint is a private company that conducts background investigations for the federal government-specifically, the Office of Personnel Management ("OPM"). OPM uses KeyPoint to investigate prospective federal employees. The depth of KeyPoint's investigations varies according to the level of security clearance involved. Most investigations, though, entail running background checks, interviewing the subject of the investigation, gathering testimony from the subject's neighbors and coworkers, and then compiling the information in a report. Government agencies rely on these reports in making employment decisions and deciding whether to issue (or reject) security clearances. OPM's contract with KeyPoint rewards timeliness. If KeyPoint finishes its investigations on time, OPM pays KeyPoint a premium. But KeyPoint's pay decreases for each day an investigation runs past the deadline. The contract also includes safeguards to ensure that KeyPoint's investigations are complete and accurate. For example, KeyPoint must do thorough case reviews of each investigation and reinterview a percentage of all sources. Another safeguard is the Telephone Testimony Program ("TTP"); KeyPoint developed such a program at OPM's request, and OPM endorsed KeyPoint's program. Ordinarily, investigators must conduct in-person interviews. But they may do telephone interviews under some circumstances, so long as they keep their total number of telephone interviews below a certain percentage threshold. Under the TTP, each month OPM sends KeyPoint a list of investigators who exceeded their allotted number of telephone interviews during the last month. KeyPoint then must send OPM "corrective action report[s]" explaining each infraction and what it is doing to remedy the problem. Aplt.'s App. at 31, ¶ 54 (Second Am. Compl., filed Dec. 5, 2016). The contract and OPM's Investigator's Handbook, which the contract incorporates, spell out these and other quality-control measures. 2 Along with KeyPoint, the background-investigation industry has two other main players-U.S. Investigations Services ("USIS") and CACI International, Inc. ("CACI"). This insular industry has had its share of troubles. From 2008 to 2010, the government prosecuted several individual investigators, including a former KeyPoint employee, for rushing investigations and falsifying information in reports to OPM. And a 2010 report summarizing an OPM audit concluded that KeyPoint's and its competitors' "quality assurance process" needed improvement. Id. at 273 (Final Audit Report, dated June 22, 2010). The year 2013 was a particularly turbulent one for the industry. That year two federal government contractors-Edward Snowden and Aaron Alexis-committed high-profile crimes after having received security clearances. These embarrassing episodes put the industry under intense scrutiny. With scrutiny came unflattering news reports. A June 2013 article reporting on allegations against USIS noted that the "concerns about background checks [were] not limited to USIS" and later named KeyPoint and CACI as USIS's "two main competitors." Id. at 159, 160 (Wash. Post Article, dated June 27, 2013). Another article that month reported that "a select group of private contractors conducting background checks for high-security jobs were not doing enough to ensure the quality of their investigations." Id. at 302 (Reuters Article, dated June 26, 2013). The article noted "problems with procedures and safeguards used by all three private contractors-USIS, KeyPoint ... and CACI." Id. at 303. A slew of other news reports covered such allegations roiling the background-investigation industry. The allegations in the press worried Congress and OPM. Those worries led to several congressional hearings to probe the industry's alleged practice of using "false, incomplete, or rushed information gathering" in its background investigations. Id. at 411 & n.3 (Order, entered Sept. 28, 2017). And the bad press of its contractors prompted OPM to commission an audit of KeyPoint's and its competitors' practices. The audit concluded that "OPM need[ed] to strengthen its controls over its Contractors and the background investigation review process." Id. at 164 (Audit Report, dated June 4, 2014). Exacerbating the industry's woes, a federal court unsealed a complaint against USIS in October 2013. See United States ex rel. Percival v. U.S. Investigations Servs., LLC , No. 2:11-cv-00527-WKW-WC, 2011 WL 13060142 (M.D. Ala. July 1, 2011) (complaint reproduced in Aplt.'s Reply Br., Addendum A). That complaint leveled three accusations against USIS: first, that USIS "failed to provide accurate and complete investigations prior to Cases being submitted to the government," Aplt.'s Reply Br., Addendum A, at 10; second, that USIS "knowingly submitted Cases to OPM for payment that [it] knew had not been reviewed," id. at 6; and third, that USIS exploited "the Blue Zone software .... to submit Cases to OPM under the false pretense that the Cases had been complete[d] and accurately and properly reviewed," id. at 12. This USIS suit and the government's intervention into it incited more press accounts of the industry's shoddy investigations. 3 Ms. Reed worked for KeyPoint during this turbulent period. As a Senior Quality Control Analyst, she reviewed investigators' work and documented incomplete investigations in monthly reports. Ms. Reed also ran KeyPoint's TTP by performing a "regular monthly audit of KeyPoint investigators who violated" the program. Aplt.'s App. at 34, ¶ 81. Along with her "regular duties," Ms. Reed "was occasionally tasked with extra audits of investigators," id. at 61, ¶ 165, or assigned "to determine the nature of ... chronic infractions," id. at 84, ¶ 228. The precise scope of Ms. Reed's responsibilities as a Senior Quality Control Analyst and where she fell in the KeyPoint hierarchy, however, are not specified in the operative complaint. Nevertheless, that complaint does clearly aver that, in discharging her duties, Ms. Reed observed what she described as "KeyPoint's systemic violations" of its contract with OPM and persistent submission of fraudulent claims for payment to the government based on incomplete or improperly completed investigations. Id. at 29, ¶ 34. Ms. Reed's position allowed her to see investigators falsely reporting applicants' backgrounds as "clean" and omitting information showing otherwise, completing fewer than the required number of interviews, and generally cutting corners. Ms. Reed also believed that she witnessed rampant violations of the TTP and a scheme by KeyPoint management to hide the violations by submitting knowingly false corrective action reports to OPM. According to Ms. Reed, KeyPoint's management not only knew of the foregoing systemic violations but also encouraged them by pressuring investigators to rush investigations to maximize revenue. Alarmed by the abuses, Ms. Reed voiced her concerns within the company. Periodically, Ms. Reed and her staff uncovered and reported violations. Ms. Reed also "regularly reported [certain] infractions to her supervisor ... by submitting and discussing a monthly spreadsheet." Id. at 62, ¶ 171. Along with these monthly reports, Ms. Reed repeatedly shared her concerns with her supervisor. She also discussed the problems with other individuals at KeyPoint, such as the Director of Training, the OPM Contract Director, Regional Managers, and certain Field Managers. But Ms. Reed's efforts to curb the violations failed. In fact, she alleges that the problems multiplied over time. Eventually, KeyPoint fired Ms. Reed in October 2013. About a month later, Ms. Reed and her counsel contacted the Department of Justice ("DOJ"). She told DOJ about the abuses she claimed to have witnessed while at KeyPoint. To back up her allegations, Ms. Reed provided a pre-disclosure statement and a presentation detailing KeyPoint's alleged violations. C At the government's urging, Ms. Reed sued KeyPoint in January 2014. Her operative complaint raised three qui tam claims and a retaliation claim. The qui tam claims alleged that KeyPoint violated the False Claims Act by: (1) falsely certifying that it performed complete and accurate investigations, (2) falsely certifying that it did proper case reviews and quality-control checks, and (3) falsifying corrective action reports. Ms. Reed's retaliation claim alleged that KeyPoint fired her for trying to stop it from violating the False Claims Act. After the government declined to intervene in the case, KeyPoint moved to dismiss the suit. The district court then informed the parties that it intended to convert the portion of KeyPoint's motion concerning the qui tam claims into a summary-judgment motion; the court did not perform a similar conversion on KeyPoint's motion to dismiss the retaliation claim. At the court's invitation, Ms. Reed filed additional evidence to defend her qui tam claims from summary judgment. In September 2017, the district court entered judgment for KeyPoint on all counts. Regarding the qui tam claims, the court declined to consider some of the supplemental materials that Ms. Reed had proffered to oppose KeyPoint's summary-judgment motion. And, on the merits, the court determined that the allegations in Ms. Reed's qui tam claims were "substantially the same" as those that had been publicly disclosed in (1) the criminal investigations of individual investigators, (2) the unflattering news reports about the background-investigation industry, (3) the congressional hearings and OPM audits, and (4) the USIS suit. Id. at 411. And, because the court also concluded that Ms. Reed did not qualify as "an 'original source,' " it dismissed her qui tam claims under the public disclosure bar. Id. at 414. As for Ms. Reed's retaliation claim, the district court granted KeyPoint's Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss after determining that she had inadequately pleaded that KeyPoint was on notice that she was engaging in protected activity. Ms. Reed now appeals from the district court's order entering judgment for KeyPoint. Her appeal presents two questions. First, did the district court err in granting KeyPoint summary judgment on the qui tam claims under the public disclosure bar? And second, did the district court err in granting KeyPoint's Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the retaliation claim? For the reasons explicated below, we answer the first question in the affirmative and the second in the negative. II We start with the first question. The public disclosure bar compels courts to dismiss qui tam claims if (1) "substantially the same allegations ... were publicly disclosed," unless (2) the relator is "an original source of the information." 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A). The district court thought the allegations in Ms. Reed's qui tam claims were substantially the same as those that had been publicly disclosed. And it further reasoned that Ms. Reed was not an original source of that information. Thus, the district court granted KeyPoint summary judgment on Ms. Reed's qui tam claims. We review that conclusion de novo and apply the same legal standard that the district court used. See United States ex rel. Smith v. Boeing Co. , 825 F.3d 1138, 1145 (10th Cir. 2016). "Summary judgment is appropriate 'if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.' " Id. (quoting FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a) ). When, as here, the district court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment, "we accept as true the relator['s] evidence and draw all reasonable inferences in [her] favor." Id. Ms. Reed argues that the district court erred twice en route to dismissing her qui tam claims under the public disclosure bar. Its first error, she says, was concluding that the allegations in her complaint were substantially the same as those aired in earlier public disclosures. Compounding that error, in her view, the district court then wrongly determined that she did not fall under the "original source" exception to the public disclosure bar. Put differently, the fate of Ms. Reed's qui tam claims hangs on two questions. First, are the allegations in those claims substantially the same as those in earlier public disclosures? And second, if so, is Ms. Reed an "original source" of the information in her claims? Our answer to the first question does not favor Ms. Reed, but our answer to the second one does. Specifically, we hold that Ms. Reed's complaint averments are substantially the same as the allegations in the available public disclosures, but the district court erred in finding that Ms. Reed's averments do not materially add to those disclosures' allegations, such that she does not qualify as an original source. But this holding does not fully resolve the original-source question. Consequently, we vacate the district court's summary-judgment order and remand for further proceedings regarding whether Ms. Reed qualifies as an original source. A We agree with the district court that Ms. Reed's allegations undergirding her qui tam claims are "substantially the same" as the allegations in the public disclosures. We explain this conclusion in three steps. First, we discuss the applicable legal standard that guides our substantially-the-same inquiry. Second, we compare the allegations in Ms. Reed's qui tam claims with those in the public disclosures. And third, we close by concluding that the allegations in the qui tam claims are "substantially the same" as the publicly disclosed allegations. 1 Congress amended the False Claims Act in 2010. See Pub. L. No. 111-148, § 10104(j)(2), 124 Stat. 119, 901-02 ("2010 amendment"). Before that year, the provision setting out the public disclosure bar read: "No court shall have jurisdiction over an action under this section based upon the public disclosure of allegations or transactions ...." 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A) (2008) (emphasis added). The amended provision reads: "The court shall dismiss an action ... if substantially the same allegations ... as alleged in the action or claim were publicly disclosed." 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A) (2010) (emphasis added). Our court has yet to opine on the degree of similarity necessary to satisfy this new substantially-the-same standard. That said, even before 2010, our circuit read the unamended provision's "based upon" language to mean that the public disclosure bar applied when "the allegations in the complaint were substantially the same as allegations in the public disclosures." Fine , 70 F.3d at 572 ; see also Glaser v. Wound Care Consultants, Inc. , 570 F.3d 907, 910 (7th Cir. 2009) (noting that "eight other circuits have read the phrase 'based upon' " to encompass allegations that are "substantially similar" to those publicly disclosed). That the substantially-the-same standard adopted in the 2010 amendment resembles the standard we already used is no accident; the amendment "expressly incorporates the 'substantially similar' standard in accordance with the interpretation of this circuit and most other circuits." Bellevue v. Universal Health Servs. of Hartgrove, Inc. , 867 F.3d 712, 718 (7th Cir. 2017), cert. denied , --- U.S. ----, 138 S.Ct. 1284, 200 L.Ed.2d 470 (2018). Thus, the 2010 amendment confirms the vitality of our pre-2010 standard. In her reply brief, Ms. Reed argues for the first time that the 2010 amendment nullifies our earlier cases. See Aplt.'s Reply Br. at 8. In her view, the amendment "made clear" Congress's "desire to narrow the impact of the public disclosure bar." Id. Indeed, Ms. Reed believes that Congress acted specifically to jettison the reasoning used in our pre-2010 cases. And so she warns us not to rely on those earlier cases in our substantially-the-same inquiry. Ms. Reed's argument is too little too late. For starters, by waiting until her reply brief to argue that the 2010 amendment narrowed the public disclosure bar's sweep and undermined our earlier cases, Ms. Reed waived that argument. See, e.g. , White v. Chafin , 862 F.3d 1065, 1067 (10th Cir. 2017) ("Mr. White waived this contention by waiting to present it for the first time in his reply brief."). Furthermore, were we to overlook this waiver, we nevertheless would decline Ms. Reed's invitation to discard our earlier precedent because of Congress's supposed "desire to narrow the impact of the public disclosure bar." Aplt.'s Reply Br. at 8. We ordinarily derive Congress's intent "from the text, not from extrinsic sources." Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, READING LAW: THE INTERPRETATION OF LEGAL TEXTS 56 (2012). The amended text says that the public disclosure bar applies when substantially the same allegations had been publicly disclosed; that is how our circuit (and most others) applied the public disclosure bar pre-amendment, see Fine , 70 F.3d at 572, and that is how we will continue to apply it until Congress or the Supreme Court tells us otherwise. In any event, Congress's supposed desire to narrow the public disclosure bar presumably would relate to only those circuits that had used a standard other than the substantially-the-same standard adopted in the 2010 amendment. See, e.g. , United States ex rel. May v. Purdue Pharma L.P. , 737 F.3d 908, 917 (4th Cir. 2013) (explaining that because the Fourth Circuit had not used the substantially-the-same standard, the 2010 amendment "changed the required connection between the plaintiff's claims and the qualifying public disclosure" in that circuit). But in this circuit-where we already used the substantially-the-same standard-the 2010 amendment "merely confirms our earlier understanding." United States ex rel. Winkelman v. CVS Caremark Corp. , 827 F.3d 201, 208 n.4 (1st Cir. 2016). Thus, our pre-2010-amendment cases guide our substantially-the-same inquiry. Those cases teach that the operative question is whether the public disclosures were sufficient to set the government "on the trail of the alleged fraud without [the relator's] assistance." Fine , 70 F.3d at 571. And we must recognize that the government's nose for fraud may be sensitive enough to pick up the scent even if the public disclosures did not "identify any specific compan[y]." See In re Nat. Gas Royalties , 562 F.3d 1032, 1039, 1042 (10th Cir. 2009). The need to identify the defendant by name is particularly weak when "the government has already identified the problem and has an easily identifiable group of probable offenders." Fine , 70 F.3d at 572. Similarly, "[a] relator need not have learned of the basis for the qui tam action from the public disclosure" to trigger the public disclosure bar. Kennard v. Comstock Res., Inc. , 363 F.3d 1039, 1044 (10th Cir. 2004). Nor is "a complete identity of allegations, even as to time, place, and manner ... required to implicate the public disclosure bar." Boothe , 496 F.3d at 1174. Rather, it is enough if "the essence of" the relator's allegations was " 'derived from' a prior public disclosure." Id. In fact, the public disclosures need not allege any False Claims Act violations or even "any wrongdoing"; they need only disclose "the material elements of the fraudulent transaction." Fine , 70 F.3d at 572. In summary, the public disclosure bar applies to qui tam claims "if substantially the same allegations ... were publicly disclosed." 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A). Our pre-2010-amendment cases primarily guide our substantially-the-same inquiry. And those cases teach that the operative question is whether the public disclosures were sufficient to set the government "on the trail of the alleged fraud without [the relator's] assistance." Fine , 70 F.3d at 571. 2 Having settled on the proper standard governing the substantially-the-same inquiry, we now must compare Ms. Reed's allegations with those in the public disclosures. Ms. Reed's Allegations . At a high level of generality, Ms. Reed's qui tam claims allege that KeyPoint "was engaging in systemic fraud." Aplt.'s Opening Br. at 1. This fraud grew from KeyPoint's "focus[ ] on meeting ... deadlines" and winning bonuses "at the expense of the quality, completeness, and accuracy" of its investigations, Ms. Reed says. Aplt.'s App. at 29, ¶ 38. For instance, Ms. Reed accuses KeyPoint of pressuring investigators to rush investigations to maximize revenue. This pressure led, generally, to rampant violations of KeyPoint's contract with OPM and, in particular, of the TTP. Notably, as to the TTP, the pressure led to the submission of knowingly false corrective action reports designed to hide the violations. At bottom, Ms. Reed alleges that KeyPoint knowingly defrauded the government to "enrich itself and its executives at the expense of national security." Aplt.'s Opening Br. at 6. Zooming in on the details, Ms. Reed claims that KeyPoint's fraud manifested itself in three main ways. First, she says that KeyPoint falsely certified to OPM that it had performed complete and accurate investigations. To support this charge, Ms. Reed points to specific instances in which investigators failed to do mandatory interviews of sources. She also details how individual investigators uncovered derogatory information about subjects but failed to report that information in their reports to OPM. Piling on, Ms. Reed lists over 100 instances in which investigators cut interviews short and then lied about it to OPM. She adds to this by exposing scores of violations of the TTP. Ms. Reed contends that the second manifestation of KeyPoint's fraud entailed falsely representing to OPM that it had done proper case reviews and quality-control checks. For instance, she documents at least five times that, "despite ... readily apparent violations," KeyPoint reviewers violated OPM requirements by failing to reopen cases. Aplt.'s App. at 88, ¶ 248. And to circumvent the TTP, "quality control staff failed to perform the proper number of re-interviews." Id. at 89, ¶ 252. The third (related) strain of fraud Ms. Reed identifies is KeyPoint's submission of falsified corrective action reports. Recall that these reports "are supposed to detail the specific actions taken by KeyPoint management to address" violations of OPM rules and programs-most notably, the TTP. Id. at 89, ¶ 255. To hide its rampant violations and institutional acquiescence to those violations, Ms. Reed alleges that "KeyPoint falsified corrective action reports to OPM" to give the appearance that it "was actively addressing [violations], when it was not." Id. at 89, ¶ 256. To Ms. Reed's knowledge, KeyPoint falsified dozens of reports to hide malfeasance by at least four individual investigators. Publicly Disclosed Allegations . There are four categories of relevant public disclosures: (1) criminal investigations of individual investigators, (2) the news reports, (3) congressional hearings and OPM audits, and (4) the previously mentioned USIS suit. Criminal Investigations. Between 2007 and 2013, the government prosecuted individual investigators for allegedly falsifying information in their reports. At least one of these "criminal cases involve[d] ... a former Key[P]oint employee who 'raced through investigations to get more work' and lied about conducting thorough background checks when they were incomplete and rushed." Id. at 410. News Reports. In 2013, a slew of news reports chronicled the suspected fraud and widespread sloppiness in the background-investigation industry. One article in September 2013 reported that the government was " 'pursuing suspected fraud in the granting of security clearances,' including '19 private and government investigators for submitting fabricated reports.' " Id. (quoting id. at 307-09 (NBC Article, dated Sept. 18, 2013)). Another article in June 2013 relayed that OPM had found problems "with procedures and safeguards used by all three private contractors-USIS, KeyPoint ... and CACI." Id. at 303. This article added that "[a]ll three companies have had investigators who were found to have done substandard work in background checks." Id. Another June 2013 article reporting on allegations against USIS noted that "concerns about background checks [were] not limited to USIS." Id. at 159. Congressional Hearings & OPM Audits . In 2013, Congress twice held hearings to investigate the background-investigation industry's practice of using "false, incomplete, or rushed information gathering" in its background investigations. Id. at 411 & n.3. OPM reacted by commissioning an audit of KeyPoint's and its competitors' practices. This audit determined that OPM "need[ed] to strengthen its controls over its Contractors and the background investigation review process." Id. at 164. Back in 2010, OPM had completed a report on another audit of the background-investigation industry. This earlier report concluded that KeyPoint's and its competitors' "quality assurance process" needed improvement. Id. at 273. The 2010 report also revealed that KeyPoint sometimes "did not conduct the required amount of re-contacts" in its investigations, id. at 289, and that there were "falsification and[ ] integrity issues" with investigations done by USIS, KeyPoint, and CACI, id. at 261. The USIS Suit. In October 2013-a month before Ms. Reed conveyed her allegations to DOJ and two months before she filed her qui tam suit-a federal court unsealed a complaint against USIS. The complaint included three qui tam claims against USIS. First, it alleged that USIS had a practice of "dumping" cases. That is, USIS allegedly sent cases "to OPM that were represented as Field Finished" when, in truth, they were unreviewed or "had not been investigated at all." Aplt.'s Reply Br., Addendum A, at 5. Second, the complaint claimed that USIS "failed to provide accurate and complete investigations." Id. at 10. Third, USIS supposedly falsely represented to OPM the extent to which it used a software program known as the "Blue Zone." Id. at 12. But the suit neither mentioned KeyPoint nor implied that USIS's fraud extended to its competitors or the industry as a whole. 3 The question now is: Are the allegations in Ms. Reed's qui tam claims substantially the same as those in the publicly disclosed sources? We agree with the district court that the answer to that question is "yes." That is, we conclude that the public disclosures were sufficient to set the government on the trail of KeyPoint's alleged fraud without Ms. Reed's assistance. At their most general, Ms. Reed's qui tam claims allege systemic sloppiness and fraud in the background-investigation industry . But the government and the public knew that much already from the news reports. Those news articles painted a picture of widespread problems with the thoroughness and accuracy of the private contractors' background investigations. And that Congress held hearings to probe the background-investigation industry's alleged practice of using "false, incomplete, or rushed information gathering" underscored the pre-existing public awareness of a strong probability of fraud in the industry. Aplt.'s App. at 411 & n.3. What is more, the criminal prosecutions of individual investigators confirmed that the government knew that investigators in the industry were falsifying information in their reports. Moving down a rung on the generality ladder to more specific footing, Ms. Reed's claims allege fraud not only in the background-investigation industry generally, but also in KeyPoint's specific background-investigative practices. That information, too, was old news to the government. After all, the government prosecuted a former KeyPoint employee for "rac[ing] through investigations" and lying "about conducting thorough background checks when they were incomplete and rushed." Id. at 410. News reports from 2013 added to this knowledge by reporting that OPM had found problems "with procedures and safeguards used by all three private contractors-USIS, KeyPoint ... and CACI." Id. at 303. To be sure, the news reports avoided explicitly accusing KeyPoint of defrauding the government. But direct allegations of fraud were unnecessary to put the government on the trail of KeyPoint's fraud. Cf. Winkelman , 827 F.3d at 208 (explaining that it is enough that the disclosures "lead to a plausible inference of fraud" (quoting United States ex rel. Ondis v. City of Woonsocket , 587 F.3d 49, 54 (1st Cir. 2009) )); United States ex rel. Osheroff v. Humana Inc. , 776 F.3d 805, 814 (11th Cir. 2015) (same); Boothe , 496 F.3d at 1174 ("[A] complete identity of allegations, even as to time, place, and manner [is unnecessary]."); Fine , 70 F.3d at 572 (noting that public disclosures need not allege "any wrongdoing"). Moreover, a 2010 OPM audit report revealed both that KeyPoint sometimes "did not conduct the required amount of re-contacts" in its investigations, Aplt.'s App. at 289, and that there were "falsification and[ ] integrity issues" with investigations done by USIS, KeyPoint, and CACI, id. at 261. The government, then, did not need Ms. Reed's allegations to pick up the scent of fraud at KeyPoint. At their most specific, Ms. Reed's claims allege that KeyPoint knowingly defrauded the government by submitting fraudulent reports about the completeness and accuracy of its investigations. The government could have inferred as much from the public disclosures. Consider the USIS lawsuit. That suit alleged that USIS failed to review investigations, failed to do adequate investigations, and sent false reports to OPM. Those are the same basic failings Ms. Reed accuses KeyPoint of. Furthermore, the USIS suit alleged that investigators sent cases "to OPM that were represented as Field Finished" when, in truth, they were unreviewed or "had not been investigated at all." Aplt.'s Reply Br., Addendum A, at 5. Ms. Reed's suit similarly asserts that KeyPoint sent OPM false claims "certifying that [its] investigators conducted complete, accurate, and proper investigations." Aplt.'s App. at 104, ¶ 359. Considering this information from the USIS lawsuit and the other publicly disclosed matters discussed above, we conclude that the public disclosures were sufficient to set the government on the trail of KeyPoint's alleged fraud without Ms. Reed's assistance. Our cases reinforce this conclusion. Take Fine , for example. The relator there accused Sandia Corporation of misappropriating nuclear waste funds. 70 F.3d at 569. At the time, Sandia was one of only nine laboratories receiving federal funds from the Department of Energy. Before the relator's suit, a government report documented how three such laboratories, including Sandia, funded their discretionary research. The report concluded that the two other laboratories-but, notably, not Sandia-were fraudulently "taxing" nuclear waste funds in order to bolster their research programs, possibly in violation of federal law. Id. Again without implicating Sandia, a later congressional hearing further probed the Department of Energy's acquiescence to such behavior from its laboratories. As we saw it, that neither the report nor the congressional hearing named Sandia as a wrongdoer was not determinative. Id. at 572. We reasoned that because the public disclosures had "identified the problem and [there was] an easily identifiable group of probable offenders," the disclosures "were sufficient to put the government on notice as to Sandia's potential for misappropriating nuclear waste funds." Id. Thus, we held that the relator's allegations were substantially the same to those in the report and the congressional hearing. Id. The same reasoning applies here. As in Fine , the public disclosures here identified the problem-fraud in background investigations-and traced that problem to an easily identifiable group of probable offenders (USIS, KeyPoint, and CACI). As in Fine , Congress held hearings to probe the suspected fraud in this limited industry. Moreover, akin to Fine , a government report (here, the 2010 OPM audit report) laid bare the heart of the matter-i.e., the falsification and integrity issues that plagued the background-investigation industry. But unlike in Fine , some of the public disclosures explicitly linked KeyPoint to the suspected fraud. The OPM audit said that "Contractors" had falsification issues; that defined term meant USIS, KeyPoint, and CACI. And the news reports publicized that OPM had "found problems with procedures and safeguards used by all three private contractors-USIS, KeyPoint ... and CACI." Aplt.'s App. at 303. Thus, although the public disclosures did not say the words "KeyPoint defrauded the government," the link that the disclosures forged between KeyPoint and the fraud was even stronger than the one in Fine , where we held that the substantially-the-same standard was satisfied. It ineluctably follows that this link was sufficient here to satisfy that standard-that is, to have set the government on the trail of KeyPoint's alleged fraud without Ms. Reed's help. Ms. Reed's attempts to distinguish Fine fall short. For starters, Ms. Reed is mistaken in asserting that "no publicly disclosed information prior to [her] lawsuit indicated that KeyPoint was a wrongdoer." Aplt.'s Reply Br. at 10. The news reports linked KeyPoint to the fraud allegations roiling the industry. Even Ms. Reed's statement that "KeyPoint was not investigated for any suspected wrongdoing," id. , rings somewhat hollow. After all, the government prosecuted a former KeyPoint employee for lying "about conducting thorough background checks when they were incomplete and rushed." Aplt.'s App. at 410. Even if Ms. Reed's characterization of the absence of a KeyPoint-specific investigation were correct, the fact that KeyPoint was not named as a wrongdoer would not distinguish Fine ; instead, it would reinforce the parallels with it. And those parallels persist even though-as Ms. Reed points out-unlike the Department of Energy, OPM never "acquiesced to or implicitly approved any fraudulent schemes." Aplt.'s Reply Br. at 10. Ms. Reed overstates the significance of the Department of Energy's acquiescence in Fine . We noted this agency conduct there to emphasize that the government knew of the underlying problem at issue in a limited industry; our point was not that the acquiescence itself was independently important. See Fine , 70 F.3d at 571. In sum, Ms. Reed errs in suggesting that Fine is materially distinguishable. It is not. To the contrary, it bolsters our conclusion that Ms. Reed's allegations are substantially the same as the publicly disclosed allegations. In re Natural Gas Royalties further supports our view on the substantially-the-same question. The relator there alleged that certain natural gas companies used fraudulent measurement techniques to underpay federal royalties. The relevant public disclosures included (1) congressional documents revealing problems with measurement techniques in the natural-gas industry, (2) an earlier qui tam suit against different gas companies for the same fraudulent practices, and (3) press accounts reporting on the earlier suit and "disclos[ing] the industrywide nature of [the suit's] broad allegations." 562 F.3d at 1042. On appeal, the relator argued that these disclosures were not substantially the same as his allegations because the specific "Defendants and techniques were not identified in any public disclosed allegation." Id. at 1040. This court disagreed. Citing Fine , we explained in In re Natural Gas Royalties that "the public disclosures at issue named a significant percentage of industry participants as wrongdoers and indicated that others in the industry were very likely engaged in the same practices." Id. at 1042. These revelations alleviated the burden for the government "to comb through myriad transactions performed by various types of entities in search of potential fraud." Id. Rather, the government needed only to investigate the measurement techniques used by a small pool of actors to ferret out the fraud. For those reasons, we held that, even without naming the specific defendants and techniques identified by the relator, "the allegations of industrywide gas mismeasurment disclosed" in the public documents "were sufficient to set the government on the trail of the fraud as to all Defendants." Id. at 1043. So too here. The allegations in the public disclosures identified pervasive fraud in the background-investigation industry. Recall that in the years before Ms. Reed's suit, the government prosecuted individual investigators for allegedly falsifying information in their reports. Furthermore, a 2013 news article reported that the government was "pursuing suspected fraud in the granting of security clearances" by contractors. Aplt.'s App. at 308. And the USIS suit alleged that one of KeyPoint's two main competitors (i.e., USIS) falsely told OPM that it had provided "accurate and complete investigations." Aplt.'s Reply Br., Addendum A, at 10. As in In re Natural Gas Royalties , the public disclosures here obviated the need for the government "to comb through myriad transactions performed by various types of entities in search of potential fraud." 562 F.3d at 1042. The disclosures identified three main players (including KeyPoint), and generally unearthed the type of fraud-false certifications of accurate and complete investigations-that the government needed to look for. Guided by In re Natural Gas Royalties , we conclude that the publicly available information here was more than enough to set the government on the trail of KeyPoint's fraud without Ms. Reed's allegations. Ms. Reed rejects such a conclusion. She first argues that her allegations "relate to a different entity" than the entities-notably, USIS-accused of wrongdoing in the public disclosures. Aplt.'s Opening Br. at 12. Ms. Reed is quick to point out that the USIS suit made "no allegations against KeyPoint" and that none of the public disclosures expressly accused KeyPoint of defrauding the government. Id. at 18. Maybe so. But the substantially-the-same standard does not demand that the disclosures identify the defendant by name as the wrongdoer. See In re Nat. Gas Royalties , 562 F.3d at 1039. To the contrary, it is enough that the "public disclosures alleged industry-wide fraud" and "provide[d] enough information" to link the defendant to the scheme. United States ex rel. Lager v. CSL Behring, L.L.C. , 855 F.3d 935, 946 (8th Cir. 2017). In a similar way, "the public disclosure bar contains no requirement that a public disclosure use magic words." Winkelman , 827 F.3d at 209. Thus, although the public disclosures did not say the magic words "KeyPoint defrauded the government," the disclosures were sufficient to link KeyPoint to fraud in an industry with only three players. No more is required. Ms. Reed next argues that her allegations substantially differ from the publicly disclosed allegations because she exposed different schemes. For instance, she maintains that "USIS had a very specific fraudulent scheme that it used to facilitate 'dumping' cases." Aplt.'s Reply Br. at 5. That scheme, Ms. Reed explains, involved representing to OPM that cases were complete when they actually were unfinished or "had not been investigated at all." Id. Her complaint, by contrast, describes "several types of fraudulent schemes specific to KeyPoint that are entirely unrelated to the USIS case or any of the other publicly disclosed information." Id. at 6. Ms. Reed is right that some of the schemes she exposed-especially, the scheme involving the TTP-added to the government's knowledge (more on this subject later), but these additions do not alter our substantially-the-same assessment. For now, the relevant question is only whether the public disclosures set the government on the trail of KeyPoint's fraud. As we have explained, this does not require "complete identity of allegations." Boothe , 496 F.3d at 1174. Rather, it is enough if the relator's complaint is "at least 'in ... part' " substantially the same as "the publicly disclosed information." Osheroff , 776 F.3d at 814 (alteration in original) (quoting Battle v. Bd. of Regents , 468 F.3d 755, 762 (11th Cir. 2006) (per curiam)). Moreover, it cannot be gainsaid that in significant, material respects Ms. Reed's complaint averments are substantially the same as the complaint averments in the USIS suit. For instance, Ms. Reed's complaint alleges that KeyPoint conducted "improper, incomplete, and inaccurate investigations." Aplt.'s App. at 33, ¶ 74. The USIS complaint likewise alleges that USIS "failed to provide accurate and complete investigations." Aplt.'s Reply Br., Addendum A, at 10. And there are other substantial similarities between the complaints. Compare Aplt.'s App. at 32, ¶ 64 (alleging that KeyPoint "transformed almost every aspect of its investigative processes to maximize profits by hitting deadlines and taking on as much work as possible, without concern for the quality, accuracy, or completeness of its investigations"), with Aplt.'s Reply Br., Addendum A, at 5 (alleging that USIS pressured "Field Investigators to submit a large number of [reports of investigations] in a short amount of time in order to meet the revenue goals"). Therefore, given these substantial similarities, that Ms. Reed's complaint revealed one or more KeyPoint fraudulent schemes that are distinct from those alleged in the USIS lawsuit does not dissuade us from the view that the USIS suit helped put the government on the trail of KeyPoint's alleged fraud. Finally, Ms. Reed argues that the district court erred by not considering 2014 congressional testimony from a KeyPoint executive, Ms. Ordakowski, in its substantially-the-same analysis. In that testimony, Ms. Ordakowski told Congress that KeyPoint met or exceeded OPM standards and had "never wavered from its focus on quality." Aplt.'s Opening Br. at 21. Ms. Reed reasons that "if the government had some suspicions about the quality of KeyPoint's work," this testimony would have "throw[n] the government off the trail of the type of fraud [that Ms. Reed] alleges." Id. This argument crumbles upon even brief reflection. First of all, Ms. Ordakowski testified months after Ms. Reed communicated her allegations to DOJ and after she sued KeyPoint. So the substance of Ms. Ordakowski's testimony tells us nothing about whether the government would have picked up the trail of fraud at KeyPoint based on the information it already had when Ms. Reed sued KeyPoint. Leaving aside this space-time-continuum problem, Ms. Reed's argument defies common sense. That Congress called a KeyPoint executive to testify about problems with background investigations strongly suggests that Congress thought there was a problem and that KeyPoint potentially was among the culprits. Cf. Fine , 70 F.3d at 572 ("[T]he public disclosures here were sufficient to put the government on notice as to Sandia's potential for misappropriating nuclear waste funds ...."). Simply put, Ms. Ordakowski's testimony supports the district court's (and our) conclusion that the public disclosures were sufficient to have alerted the government to KeyPoint's potential for fraud. In summary, we agree with the district court that the allegations in Ms. Reed's qui tam claims are substantially the same as those in the public disclosures. Thus, unless Ms. Reed is an "original source" of the information in her claims, the public disclosure bar prevents those claims from proceeding. B We now take up the question of whether Ms. Reed is an original source. Recall that the district court concluded that Ms. Reed was not an original source and therefore dismissed her qui tam claims under the public disclosure bar. Ms. Reed argues that in doing so the district court made both a procedural and a substantive error. The court's procedural error, she says, was excluding some of the evidence that she submitted to the court after it converted KeyPoint's motion to dismiss to a summary-judgment motion. As for the alleged substantive error, Ms. Reed contends that the district court erred in concluding that she was not an original source, in particular, because her complaint averments did not materially add to the information in the public disclosures. As we explain below, Ms. Reed loses the procedural battle but wins the substantive war. That is, we hold that the district court did not err in excluding certain proffered evidence at summary judgment, but we hold that the court did err in concluding that Ms. Reed was not an original source because her complaint averments did not satisfy the materially-adds standard. 1 When a district court relies on material outside the complaint to resolve a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, it ordinarily must convert that motion "into a motion for summary judgment." Burnham v. Humphrey Hosp. Reit Tr., Inc. , 403 F.3d 709, 713 (10th Cir. 2005) ; see FED. R. CIV. P. 12(d). If a district court intends to convert a motion, it should inform the parties of this intention and give them "the opportunity to present to the court all material made pertinent to such motion by Rule 56." Nichols v. United States , 796 F.2d 361, 364 (10th Cir. 1986) (quoting Ohio v. Peterson, Lowry, Rall, Barber & Ross , 585 F.2d 454, 457 (10th Cir. 1978) ). Converting a motion "without giving the adverse party an opportunity to present pertinent material is error." Adams v. Campbell Cty. Sch. Dist. , 483 F.2d 1351, 1353 (10th Cir. 1973). We review a district court's choice to exclude evidence at the summary-judgment stage, however, "only for an abuse of discretion." LifeWise Master Funding v. Telebank , 374 F.3d 917, 927 (10th Cir. 2004). Without "a definite and firm conviction that the [district] court made a clear error of judgment or exceeded the bounds of permissible choice," we cannot say that the court abused its discretion. Id. (quoting Lantec, Inc. v. Novell, Inc. , 306 F.3d 1003, 1016 (10th Cir. 2002) ). The district court converted KeyPoint's Rule 12(b)(6) motion into a summary-judgment motion. Before doing so, it allowed the parties to present relevant material. Ms. Reed asked to present three sets of materials: (1) documents that she had given the government both before and after she filed her qui tam suit, (2) a declaration in which she attested "to the source of her allegations," and (3) more "briefing on the public disclosure and original source issues." Aplt.'s Opening Br. at 30. After considering Ms. Reed's proffered materials, the district court allowed her to submit only the documents she gave the government in her pre-filing disclosures: specifically, the court excluded any post-filing disclosures to the government, Ms. Reed's declaration, and the additional briefing. Those other materials, the court reasoned, would not add "any material information" helpful to the public-disclosure-bar inquiry because Ms. Reed's complaint made "clear what the source of [her] knowledge was" and because the parties had fully briefed the applicable legal standards. Aplt.'s App. at 404. Thus, under the court's view, the post-filing documents, declaration, and additional briefing "were not 'made pertinent' by the conversion." Id. (quoting Nichols , 796 F.2d at 364 ). To the extent that Ms. Reed argues that the district court erred by refusing "to allow [her] the opportunity to provide all material evidence," Aplt.'s Opening Br. at 30 (emphasis added), the record proves otherwise. The court notified the parties of its intention to convert the motion to a summary-judgment motion, and it gave them time to provide pertinent material. Unlike the parties in the cases she cites, Ms. Reed had ample opportunity to provide the court with "material made pertinent by Rule 56." Nichols , 796 F.2d at 364 (quoting Peterson , 585 F.2d at 457 ). Indeed, the court twice permitted Ms. Reed to amend her complaint to include the post-filing information she now complains the court excluded. In the end, the court gave Ms. Reed notice of the conversion, considered her proffered material, and even accepted some of that evidence. And the district court's exclusion of the post-filing disclosures, Ms. Reed's declaration, and the added briefing was well within "the bounds of permissible choice." LifeWise Master Funding , 374 F.3d at 927 (quoting Lantec , 306 F.3d at 1016 ). Simply put, the court reasonably concluded that none of those items contained material and relevant information that the court did not already possess. Therefore, the excluded materials were not "made pertinent" by the conversion. Nichols , 796 F.2d at 364 (quoting Peterson , 585 F.2d at 457 ). Ms. Reed, however, begs to differ. She says the excluded post-filing disclosure statement and personal declaration were "pertinent" to "establish[ing] her status as an original source." Aplt.'s Opening Br. at 30. These materials, Ms. Reed contends, would have shown "the extent to which [her] allegations materially added to those allegations that had purportedly been publicly disclosed." Id. at 33. The problem for Ms. Reed is that-as she admitted-the allegations in her complaint were "based almost entirely upon the documents that were discussed during the pre-filing meeting with [DOJ]." Aplee.'s Suppl. App., Vol. VII, at 1419 (Ms. Reed's Objs. to R. & R., filed Sept. 12, 2017). And Ms. Reed twice amended her complaint to include the crux of the information from her post-filing disclosures to the government. Ms. Reed's proffered materials, then, would have merely duplicated that existing information in the twice-amended complaint. In the end, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion as to this procedural matter. Thus, we leave undisturbed the district court's ruling excluding the post-filing disclosures, Ms. Reed's declaration, and the additional briefing. 2 a Having resolved the procedural issue, we turn to the substance of the original-source question. The False Claims Act instructs courts to dismiss qui tam claims under the public disclosure bar "if substantially the same allegations ... were publicly disclosed"-unless the relator is "an original source of the information." 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A). We have already resolved the substantially-the-same question in KeyPoint's favor. We now must decide whether the district court erred in determining that Ms. Reed's qui tam claims cannot escape the public disclosure bar through the original-source exception. Two types of relators qualify as "original sources." The first type is a relator who, "prior to a public disclosure [within the meaning of the Act] ..., has voluntarily disclosed to the Government the information on which allegations or transactions in a claim are based." Id. § 3730(e)(4)(B). The second type is a relator with "knowledge that is independent of and materially adds to the publicly disclosed allegations" and who gave the government this information before filing her qui tam claims. Id. Before the district court, Ms. Reed argued that she was an original source of the second type. The district court agreed that Ms. Reed had in fact given the government her information before she sued KeyPoint. But the court ruled that Ms. Reed's allegations did not "materially add" to the public disclosures. And so, without addressing whether Ms. Reed's knowledge was "independent of" the public disclosures, the district court concluded that Ms. Reed was not an original source. On appeal, Ms. Reed argues that the district court erred in concluding that her allegations did not "materially add" to the public disclosures. As for the "independent of" portion of the original-source inquiry, Ms. Reed says in a short footnote that she satisfies that criterion, too. See Aplt.'s Opening Br. at 29 n.8. For its part, KeyPoint posits that "regardless of whether her knowledge was 'independent of' the public disclosures," Ms. Reed is not an original source because her allegations "did not materially add to the public disclosures." Aplee.'s Resp. Br. at 34. Our circuit has yet to expound on the meaning of the "materially adds" language in the original-source exception. Congress added this language in the same 2010 amendment discussed earlier but did not define the term. Since then, however, several other courts of appeals have interpreted the "materially adds" requirement. We are particularly persuaded by the First Circuit's analysis in Winkelman . There, the court framed the relevant question for the materially-adds inquiry as "whether the relators' allegedly new information is sufficiently significant or essential so as to fall into the narrow category of information that materially adds to what has already been revealed through public disclosures." 827 F.3d at 211. To determine what information falls into the materially-adds bucket, the First Circuit looked to the ordinary legal meaning of "material"-i.e., an addition that "is '[o]f such a nature that knowledge of the item would affect a person's decision-making,' or if it is 'significant,' or if it is 'essential.' " Id. (quoting BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 1124 (10th ed. 2014) [hereinafter BLACK'S ] ). In other words, Winkelman teaches that a relator "materially adds" to public disclosures if her information "is sufficiently important to influence the behavior of the recipient." Id. The Winkelman definition of "materially adds" finds support in the Act's provisions defining the scope of liability, which state that "the term 'material' means having a natural tendency to influence, or be capable of influencing, the payment or receipt of money or property." 31 U.S.C. § 3729(b)(4) ; see also Joel D. Hesch, Restating the "Original Source Exception" to the False Claims Act's "Public Disclosure Bar" in Light of the 2010 Amendments , 51 U. OF RICH. L. REV. 991, 1019 (2017) (looking to § 3729(b)(4) in attempting to discern the meaning of "materially adds" and ultimately concluding that it means that "a reasonable person would attach importance to the information"). Furthermore, though they have applied the definition in different ways, a few federal circuit courts have expressly adopted a like definition of "materially adds." See United States ex rel. Advocates for Basic Legal Equal., Inc. v. U.S. Bank, N.A. , 816 F.3d 428, 431 (6th Cir. 2016) ("Materiality in this setting requires the claimant to show it had information '[o]f such a nature that knowledge of the item would affect a person's decision-making,' is 'significant,' or is 'essential.' " (quoting BLACK'S , supra , at 1124