COLLINS, Circuit Judge:

Robert Turchin appeals his conviction and sentence arising from his participation in a scheme to issue California commercial driver’s licenses to persons who had not passed the requisite tests. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a), and we affirm in part, reverse in part, vacate in part, and remand.

I

Turchin worked as a licensing registration examiner at the California Department of Motor Vehicles (“DMV”) office in Salinas, California. As a licensing examiner, Turchin was able to access the DMV database and enter test scores for applicants seeking California commercial driver’s licenses (“CDLs”). The Government’s theory at trial was that Mangal Gill, who owned a truck-driving school, paid Turchin and another DMV employee, Emma Klem, to enter false information into the DMV database stating that specified persons identified by Gill had obtained passing scores on DMV exams required for applicants seeking CDLs. After undercover Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) operatives obtained illegitimate CDLs through this scheme, Turchin was indicted, as were Gill, Klem, and various other participants. Specifically, Turchin was charged with (1) three counts of fraud involving identification documents in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(1); and (2) one count, under 18 U.S.C. § 371, of conspiracy to violate (i) the prohibitions on bribery concerning a program receiving federal funds, see id. § 666(a)(1)(B) and (a)(2); and (ii) the prohibition on fraud involving identification documents, see id. § 1028(a)(1).

At Turchin’s jury trial, the DHS operatives testified that they were able to obtain CDLs without passing the required tests and that they had received hard copies of those licenses in the mail. Klem, who had pleaded guilty, testified against Turchin, stating that Gill paid her to alter DMV records by entering false passing test scores and that he told her that, if she could not update a given record, he would “have Robert [Turchin] finish it.” Salinas DMV supervisor Julie Ferreira testified that she noticed on multiple occasions that Turchin entered passing test scores for applicants who had not passed required tests.

The prosecution also offered evidence of text messages containing the California driver’s license numbers of particular individuals, which Gill sent to Turchin shortly before Turchin updated the corresponding records for those persons with false passing scores. For example, Gill sent at least three texts containing license numbers to Turchin on March 27–28, 2015, and later in the day on March 28, Turchin updated the corresponding DMV records with phony passing scores. Then, on March 29, Turchin sent Gill a text that listed the last three digits of these license numbers, together with the notations “closed” and “postage due.” A search of Turchin’s SUV a few days later revealed at least four envelopes stuffed in a corner of the cargo trunk area. Those envelopes contained a total of over $10,000 in various denominations. Klem testified that Gill similarly paid her cash in envelopes.

The jury convicted Turchin on all counts, and it made a special finding that Turchin had conspired both to violate the bribery statute and to commit identity fraud.

II

Viewing the underlying facts in the light most favorable to the verdict, we review de novo Turchin’s argument that his actions fell outside the “scope of the conduct” covered by 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(1). See United States v. Deeb, 175 F.3d 1163, 1166–67 (9th Cir. 1999). 1 We reject this contention.

Turchin was charged under the language of § 1028(a)(1) that imposes punishment on anyone who “knowingly and without lawful authority produces an identification document.” 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(1). The California CDLs that Turchin produced were “identification documents” within the plain meaning of the statutory definition of that term. See id. § 1028(d)(3) (“identification document” includes a “document made or issued by or under the

1 Turchin did not move for a judgment of acquittal below, nor did he submit proposed jury instructions reflecting all of the various legal requirements that he now insists the Government should have met. “[A]rguably we could deem [such] issue[s] forfeited and therefore subject only to plain error review,” but to the extent that the Government has forfeited any such forfeiture objections, “we will proceed to consider th[ese] issue[s] de novo.” United States v. Kuzma, 967 F.3d 959, 966 n.6 (9th Cir. 2020).

authority of . . . a State . . . which, when completed with information concerning a particular individual, is of a type intended or commonly accepted for the purpose of identification of individuals”). Given that Turchin knew that the recipients had not completed the eligibility requirements for these CDLs, he knowingly produced those identification documents “without lawful authority.” Id. § 1028(a)(1). To the extent that Turchin contends that an identification document is produced “without lawful authority” only when it is issued to a “misidentified” person, there is no basis in the statutory language for imposing such a limitation. There are any number of ways in which the requisite “lawful authority” for producing an identification document might be lacking, and nothing in the statute limits its coverage to that specific situation. See United States v. Osuna-Alvarez, 788 F.3d 1183, 1185–86 (9th Cir. 2015) (rejecting narrow reading of “without lawful authority” in 18 U.S.C. § 1028A, which defines aggravated identity theft, and explaining that “[t]his language clearly and unambiguously encompasses situations like the present, where an individual grants the defendant permission to possess his or her means of identification, but the defendant then proceeds to use the identification unlawfully”).

Turchin also argues that the documents he produced do not qualify as “false identification documents” as defined in § 1028(d)(4), but even assuming that is true, it makes no difference here. Turchin was charged with, and convicted of, violating the portion of § 1028(a)(1) that criminalizes producing “identification document[s]” without lawful authority, not the portion of that subsection that proscribes producing “false identification document[s]” without lawful authority. 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(1) (emphasis added).

III

Turchin contends that the Government failed to establish the requisite nexus to commerce to support either the alleged violations of § 1028 or the alleged conspiracy to violate § 1028 and § 666. We agree that the Government did not properly establish the requisite nexus to support the § 1028 charges or the conspiracy charge to the extent that it is based on § 1028, but not for the reasons that Turchin identifies. We find no reversible error as to the conviction for conspiring to violate § 666. 2

A

Any charge of unlawful production of an identity document under § 1028(a)(1) requires a showing of a federal nexus in one of three alternative ways: (1) the identification document “is or appears to be issued by or under the authority of the United States or a sponsoring entity of an event designated as a special event of national significance”; The Government contends that we should not address any issue about § 1028(c)(1) given that Turchin failed to argue in his opening brief that the district court’s instructions concerning that section were plainly erroneous. See, e.g., United States v. Salman, 792 F.3d 1087, 1090 (9th Cir. 2015). But the rule that we will not consider “matters on appeal that are not specifically and distinctly argued in appellant’s opening brief” is not ironclad, and we have departed from it when, inter alia, the “failure to do so would result in manifest injustice” or the “defense of the opposing party” has not been prejudiced. Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). We conclude that it is appropriate to exercise our discretion to depart from that rule here.

As an initial matter, the asserted plain error in the § 1028(c)(1) instruction is not an entirely new “matter,” because the issue of federal nexus under § 1028(c) was raised in the opening brief, thereby requiring us to consider whether there was prejudicial error in the application of that statute. The Government itself noted in its answering brief that § 1028(c) provides alternative options for finding a federal nexus, and it conspicuously relied on only two of the three enumerated in the statute, namely, those listed in § 1028(c)(3)(A) and § 1028(c)(3)(B). Fairly construed, the Government’s arguments rested on the implicit premise that the third option in § 1028(c)(1) was not applicable here: indeed, if the opposite were true, and the jury had been properly permitted to rest its verdict on § 1028(c)(1), then Turchin’s claims of evidentiary insufficiency concerning the other alternatives would be harmless and we could not grant Turchin relief on those claims. See Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 52, 59 (1991). In short, we could not properly dispose of the issues that the parties raised in this appeal without examining the record to determine which of the three options were presented to the jury and in what manner. And upon doing so, we noted that the Government had relied on all three alternatives below, and that it affirmatively argued to the jury, in accordance with the instructions, that the first alternative was satisfied here because the identifications were “issued under the authority of some state government” (emphasis added). Accordingly, whether or not the parties specifically called § 1028(c)(1) to our attention, some consideration of that subsection was unavoidably embedded in the resolution of the issues that were presented here.

On this record, we conclude that consideration of this embedded sub-issue is necessary to avoid manifest injustice and that the Government has not been prejudiced. Having been required by the parties’ arguments to examine the record concerning how the § 1028(c) issue was presented to the jury, we cannot be expected to close our eyes to the rather obvious and prejudicial mistake that stared out at us and that, as we explain below, meets all of the requirements of the plain-error doctrine. Moreover, because the parties have been allowed to submit supplemental briefing, the Government has had a full and fair opportunity to address the merits of the issue. See Salman, 792 F.3d at 1090. Although the Government notes that it did not have the opportunity to address this issue at oral argument, it did not request further argument in its brief. And given that the Government’s position on the merits is plainly lacking in merit, we perceive no need to sua sponte reset this case for argument.

The Government also argues that our consideration of the § 1028(c)(1) issue would violate the “principle of party presentation,” under which a reviewing court generally “rel[ies] on the parties to frame the issues for decision.” United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. 1575, 1579 (2020). But that sub-issue is already embedded in the issues that the parties have framed for our decision, and it would be manifestly unjust not to consider it. More broadly, the Government’s expansive reading of Sineneng-Smith seems hard to square with the language and purpose of Rule 52(b), which expressly allows courts to “consider[]” a “plain error that affects substantial rights . . . even though it was not brought to the court’s attention.” FED. R. CRIM. P. 52(b) (emphasis added); cf. Barrados-Zarate v. Barr, 981 F.3d 603, 605 (7th Cir. 2020) (noting that “[s]ome statutes and rules permit review for plain error, but the Immigration and Nationality Act lacks such an exception to the norm of party presentation”); cf. also Greenlaw v. United States, 554 U.S. 237, 247 (2008) (“This Court has indeed noticed, and ordered correction of, plain errors not raised by defendants, but we have done so only to benefit a defendant who had himself petitioned the Court for review on other grounds.”). In Sineneng-Smith, by contrast, the panel sua sponte raised issues that the parties had not raised, and it expressly refused to apply the strict “plain error” standard that the Government argued would apply to those arguments and could not be met. United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 910 F.3d 461, 469 (9th Cir. 2018). Given that—as we explain below—the demanding standards of Rule 52(b) are satisfied here—our consideration of the plain error concerning the § 1028(c)(1) issue bears no resemblance to the “radical transformation” of the case undertaken in Sineneng-Smith. 140 S. Ct. at 1581–82.

We disagree with the Government’s argument that the jury instruction’s interpretation of § 1028(c)(1) was not plain error. The standards for evaluating “plain error” were recently summarized by the Supreme Court as follows:

To establish eligibility for plain-error relief, a defendant must satisfy three threshold requirements. First, there must be an error. Second, the error must be plain. Third, the error must affect “substantial rights,” which generally means that there must be “a reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different.” If those three requirements are met, an appellate court may grant relief if it concludes that the error had a serious effect on “the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.”

Greer v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 2090, 2096–97 (2021) (citations omitted) (emphasis in original). All of these requirements are satisfied in this case.

As relevant here, § 1028(c)(1) provides that the requisite federal nexus exists if “the identification document . . . is or appears to be issued by or under the authority of the United States or a sponsoring entity of an event designated as a special event of national significance.” 18 U.S.C. § 1028(c)(1). 4 The Government notes that, by using the term “identification document,” this provision carries over the definition of that term in § 1028(d)(3), which provides:

the term “identification document” means a document made or issued by or under the authority of the United States Government, a State, political subdivision of a State, a sponsoring entity of an event designated as a special event of national significance, a foreign government, political subdivision of a foreign government, an international governmental or an international quasi- governmental organization which, when completed with information concerning a particular individual, is of a type intended or commonly accepted for the purpose of identification of individuals.

Id. § 1028(d)(3). The Government argues that, when § 1028(c)(1)’s federal nexus provision refers to the subset of documents described in § 1028(d)(3) that are issued by “the United States” or by a “sponsoring entity of an event designated as a special event of national significance,” id. § 1028(c)(1), the phrase “United States” refers “broadly to the United States and all of its component parts, including the States” (emphasis added). That is wrong, and plainly so.

Nothing in the text of § 1028(c)(1) remotely suggests that, in using the familiar term “United States” to refer to the entity under whose “authority” the identification was issued,

4 Section 1028(c)(1) also contains an additional clause concerning “document-making implement[s],” but that clause has no application to Turchin’s case.

Congress intended to depart from the ordinary referent of that phrase, which is the national government, and to instead refer to each of the 50 State governments as well. ^[5] On the contrary, the obvious difference in language between § 1028(c)(1) and § 1028(d)(3) confirms that the phrase “United States” is used in accordance with its ordinary meaning. The definition of “identification document” in § 1028(d)(3) broadly includes identifying documents that are issued by a wide range of governmental entities, including federal, foreign, and international agencies, as well as “a State, [or a] political subdivision of a State.” 18 U.S.C. § 1028(d)(3). But in identifying the subset of documents from that enumerated list that, without more, automatically establish a sufficient federal nexus, § 1028(c)(1) includes only two of the items on § 1028(d)(3)’s list and omits all of the others—that is, it includes only identification documents “issued by or under the authority of [1] the United States or [2] a sponsoring entity of an event designated as a special event of national significance.” Id. § 1028(c)(1). The obvious omission of the phrase “a State, [or a] political subdivision of a State” from the smaller list in § 1028(c)(1) confirms that an identification document produced by a State would not be sufficient to satisfy the federal nexus described in § 1028(c)(1). See Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23 (1983) (“Where Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or