Before RICHMAN, Chief Judge, and CLEMENT and HIGGINSON, Circuit Judges. STEPHEN A. HIGGINSON, Circuit Judge: In this consolidated appeal, Plaintiffs-Appellants challenge the district courtâs application of the independent intermediary doctrine to dismiss their Fourth Amendment false arrest claims. We REVERSE and REMAND for further proceedings. I. This case concerns the fallout from the deadly shootout that occurred on May 17, 2015, at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas. This court recently resolved a related set of appeals concerning the Twin Peaks shootout in Terwilliger v. Reyna, 4 F.4th 270 (5th Cir. 2021). The individual plaintiffs here are similar to the plaintiffs in Terwilliger in several respects. All are motorcyclists who had gathered at the Twin Peaks for a meeting of the Texas Confederation of Clubs & Independents. See id. at 277. All were eventually arrested following the shootout for Engaging in Organized Criminal Activity (âEIOCAâ), in violation of Texas Penal Code § 71.02. See Terwilliger, 4 F.4th at 277. And all were arrested pursuant to the same âform warrant affidavitâ that was presented to the magistrate judge as the basis for the arrest warrants. See id. at 278-79. But for the subjectâs name, which was to be inserted on a blank line, the affidavit was identical in every respect. Id. In total, 177 individuals were arrested using this identical âfill-in-the-nameâ affidavit. Id. at 279. Following their arrests, both the Terwilliger plaintiffs and the plaintiffs here filed multiple individual § 1983 actions asserting similar false arrest claims, which are premised on alleged defects in the form affidavit used to secure the arrest warrants. See id. Unlike the Terwilliger plaintiffs, however, the individual plaintiffs hereâin addition to being arrested pursuant to the magistrateâs warrantâ were all subsequently indicted by a grand jury for EIOCA. This difference proved crucial to the district courtâs resolution of the § 1983 actions brought by each set of plaintiffs. With respect to the Terwilliger plaintiffs, the district court held that their Franks false arrest claims survived the motion to dismiss stage, at least with respect to some defendants. Id. at 283-84 (citing Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978)). For the plaintiffs here, by contrast, the district court granted in full the defendantsâ motion to dismiss the false arrest claims. The district court held that, pursuant to the independent intermediary doctrine, the grand juryâs indictment served to break the chain of causation for any false arrest claim pertaining to the form affidavit and the arrest warrant issued by the magistrate judge. See McLin v. Ard, 866 F.3d 682, 689 (5th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). Because the district court concluded that the independent intermediary doctrine applied, it did not discuss the merits of the plaintiffsâ false arrest claims. But the nature of the plaintiffsâ false arrest claims is relevant to our inquiry here because they argue, in essence, that the independent intermediary doctrine should not apply to the grand juryâs indictment because the grand jury was misled in the very same way as the magistrate who issued the arrest warrants. We will thus begin by discussing, at a high level, the nature of the plaintiffsâ false arrest claims. II. The false arrest claims asserted by the plaintiffs here largely mirror the claims asserted by the Terwilliger plaintiffs. Broadly, both sets of plaintiffs take aim at the form warrant affidavit and allege that defects in that affidavit led to them being arrested without particularized probable cause. Terwilliger, 4 F.4th at 279. More specifically, both sets of plaintiffs asserted two alternative false arrest claims, one premised on Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335 (1986) and the other premised on Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978). See Terwilliger, 4 F.4th at 279. In Malley, the Supreme Court described that an officer can be held liable for a false arrest despite the issuance of an arrest warrant by a magistrate if the affidavit the officer presented to the magistrate was âso lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence unreasonable.â 475 U.S. at 344-45 (citation omitted). âThe Malley wrong is not the presentment of false evidence, but the obvious failure of accurately presented evidence to support the probable cause required for the issuance of a warrant.â Melton v. Phillips, 875 F.3d 256, 264 (5th Cir. 2017) (en banc). In other words, an officer can avoid liability under Malley if he presents a warrant affidavit that facially supplies probable cause to arrest the subject of the warrant. See Blake v. Lambert, 921 F.3d 215, 221-22 (5th Cir. 2019). But even if a warrant affidavit supplies probable cause on its face, an officer can still be liable under Franks if the apparent probable cause is the result of âmaterial misstatements or material omissions.â Terwilliger, 4 F.4th at 281 (citations omitted). Specifically, an officer is liable under Franks if he âdeliberately or recklessly provides false, material information for use in an affidavit in support of [a warrant]â or â makes knowing and intentional omissions that result in a warrant being issued without probable causeâ Melton, 875 F.3d at 264 (alteration in original) (emphasis removed) (first quoting Hart v. OâBrien, 127 F.3d 424, 448 (5th Cir. 1997); and then quoting Michalik v. Hermann, 422 F.3d 252, 258 n.5 (5th Cir. 2005)). In Terwilliger, this court held that the challenged form warrant affidavit, on its face, âsufficiently alleged probable cause to arrest those to whom its facts appliedâ for the offense of EIOCA. 4 F.4th at 282. More precisely, the court described that the affidavit supplied probable cause to conclude that âmembers or associates of the Bandidos or Cossacks instigated and were involved in the Twin Peaks shootout, and that their conduct rose to the level of violating the [offense of] EIOCA.â Id. Correspondingly, the affidavitâin essenceârepresented that each individual subject that was arrested (the plaintiffs here among them) was a member or associate of the Bandidos or Cossacks who was involved in the shootout and the unlawful activity more generally described in the affidavit. See id. at 278-79, 282-83. Furthermore, this court described that the Terwilliger plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that this latter, particularized representation was based on materially false statements and omissions that were deliberately or recklessly made by the defendants. See id. at 282-83. For example, the plaintiffs âden[ied] affiliation with the Bandidos or Cossacks,â denied âany involvement with or membership in a âcriminal street gangââ and, in some instances, denied wearing any signs or symbols that would identify them as associated with the Bandidos or Cossacks, or any other alleged criminal street gang. Id. at 282. They further denied engaging in any of the unlawful conduct generally described in the affidavit. See id. In addition, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants had âdeliberately excluded relevant information that would have weighed against individualized probable cause, such as video evidence, witness interviews, and membership in motorcycle clubs known to be independent and not affiliated with the Bandidos or Cossacks.â Id. at 283. Once the affidavit was âcorrectedâ to account for these alleged false statements and omissions, this court concluded that âthe remaining particularized facts in the affidavitâ were insufficient to establish probable cause to arrest any of the subjects for EIOCA. Id. As a result, the court held that the Terwilliger plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged a Franks claim at the pleading stage (but only against some of the named defendants). Id. at 283- 84. In sum, Terwilliger sets the lay of the land for analyzing the false arrest claims in this case. It does so in two ways. First, it construes the challenged form warrant affidavit as (1) generally alleging that members of the Bandidos and Cossacks engaged in violent activity at the Twin Peaks that amounted to EIOCA, and (2) linking each specific subject of the warrant to that general set of probable cause-establishing facts, thus creating particularized probable cause to arrest each subject. See id. at 282-83. Second, Terwilliger describes that the plaintiffs in that case successfully pleaded Franks claims by plausibly alleging in their complaints that (1) they were not associated with the Bandidos or Cossacks and that they had nothing to do with the violent activity that is described in the affidavit and (2) certain defendants recklessly or knowingly caused it to be stated otherwise in the affidavit (i.e., a material misstatement) and/or excluded from the affidavit information in their possession that would have materially undermined the aforementioned particularized probable cause (i.e., a material omission). See id. III. As discussed above, the district court pretermitted any discussion of whether the plaintiffs here had adequately alleged a Franks claim with respect to the form affidavit and their ensuing arrests pursuant to the magistrate- issued warrant. It did so because it concluded that any such claim must necessarily fail as a result of the plaintiffsâ subsequent indictment by the grand jury and the application of the independent intermediary doctrine. We review de novo the district courtâs grant of the defendantsâ motion to dismiss and its application of the independent intermediary doctrine. McLin v. Ard, 866 F.3d 682, 688 (5th Cir. 2017). We hold that the district court erred in its application of the independent intermediary doctrine and take this opportunity to clarify how the doctrine operates with respect to Franks (and Malley) claims, especially when two separate intermediaries are involved. A. âIt is well settled that if facts supporting an arrest are placed before an independent intermediary such as a magistrate or grand jury, the intermediaryâs decision breaks the chain of causation for false arrest, insulating the initiating party.â McLin, 866 F.3d at 689 (quoting Deville v. Marcantel, 567 F.3d 156, 170 (5th Cir. 2009)). Thus, a properly secured arrest warrant or grand jury indictment will shield a defendant who has committed or initiated a false arrest. Buehler v. City of Austin/Austin Police Depât, 824 F.3d 548, 553-54 (5th Cir. 2016). This is true even if the independent intermediaryâs action occurred after the arrest or if the arrestee was never convicted of a crime. Id. at 554. But the intermediary must be truly independent. Thus, âthe initiating party may be liable for false arrest if the plaintiff shows that âthe deliberations of that intermediary were in some way tainted by the actions of the defendant.ââ Deville v. Marcantel, 567 F.3d 156, 170 (5th Cir. 2009) (emphasis added) (quoting Hand v. Gary, 838 F.2d 1420, 1428 (5th Cir. 1988)). This court has sometimes referred to this principle as the âtaint exception.â See, e.g., McLin, 866 F.3d at 689. Regardless of label, this court has recognized Franks and Malley as functional exceptions to the independent intermediary doctrine. See Mayfield v. Currie, 976 F.3d 482, 487 (5th Cir. 2020) (describing Franks and Malley as âtwo ways to overcome the [independent intermediary] doctrineâ); Terwilliger, 4 F.4th at 281 (âFunctionally, the holding of Franks is an exception to the independent intermediary doctrine.â); Anokwuru v. City of Houston, 990 F.3d 956, 963-64 (5th Cir. 2021) (discussing Franks as an exception to the independent intermediary doctrine); Arizmendi v. Gabbert, 919 F.3d 891, 897 (5th Cir. 2019) (same); see also Blake v. Lambert, 921 F.3d 215, 220 (5th Cir. 2019) (describing that a warrant affidavit suffering a Malley defect âdoes not provide any supporting facts from which a magistrate could independently determine probable causeâ). Of course, it could not be otherwise. It would defy Supreme Court precedent to hold that, for example, a plaintiff had successfully pleaded a Malley claim by alleging that an officer had presented a facially deficient warrant affidavit to a magistrate but that the officer was nonetheless insulated from liability because the magistrate proceeded to issue a warrant based on that affidavit. See Malley, 475 U.S. at 345-46 (holding that an officer is liable for submitting a deficient warrant application even if a magistrate approves it). Thus, if a plaintiff adequately pleads that an officer has obtained an arrest warrant from a magistrate in violation of Malley or Franks, then nothing more is required to show that the independent intermediary doctrine does not apply with respect to that intermediaryâs decision. See Mayfield, 976 F.3d at 487. That being the case, however, does not necessarily prevent a second intermediaryâs decisionâsuch as a grand juryâs subsequent indictmentâ from triggering the independent intermediary doctrine to ultimately insulate the officer from liability. See Winfrey v. Rogers, 901 F.3d 483, 489-90, 496-97 (5th Cir. 2018) (acknowledging that a grand juryâs subsequent indictment, via the independent intermediary doctrine, could insulate an officer from a Franks violation committed before a magistrate). And that is the very situation that the district court held, and the defendants continue to argue, is presented here. B. The district courtâs holdingâthat the grand juryâs indictment triggered the independent intermediary doctrine and that the plaintiffs failed to plead facts establishing an exceptionâturned on both the purported factual inadequacy of the plaintiffsâ pleadings and legal conclusions about the nature of the independent intermediary doctrine and its exceptions. We address these legal conclusions first. To do so, we will temporarily make two assumptions related to the plaintiffsâ pleadings.[1] First, we will assume that the plaintiffs have adequately alleged a Franks claim with respect to the magistrateâs warrant in a manner identical to the plaintiffs in Terwilliger. Second, we will assumeâas the plaintiffs argueâthat they have adequately alleged that the grand jury was misled in the same way that the magistrate was misled. That is, that the original Franks violation was repeated before the grand jury. If so, the question is whether that suffices to render the independent intermediary doctrine inapplicable to the grand juryâs indictment. As a legal matter, the district court held that in order to show that the grand juryâs deliberations were tainted, the plaintiffs had to adequately allege that (1) each defendant (2) maliciously omitted evidence or misled the jury. Because the defendants continue to press those purported requirements here, we address each in turn. 1. We begin first with the argument that âeachâ defendant must have tainted the grand jury. There is no such requirement. Fundamentally, the argument confuses the scope of liability for a false arrest with what is necessary to show that an intervening intermediaryâs actions were not truly independent. Consider the present circumstances. To be sure, the plaintiffs here must adequately plead (and ultimately prove) that each defendant falls within the scope of liability for the Franks violation allegedly committed in securing the arrest warrant from the magistrate. See Terwilliger, 4 F.4th at 283-84; Melton, 875 F.3d at 263 (holding that âan officer must have assisted in the preparation of, or otherwise presented or signed a warrant application in order to be subject to liability under Franksâ). That is because the Franks violation with respect to the magistrateâs warrant is the plaintiffsâ cause of action. See Hart v. OâBrien, 127 F.3d 424, 442 (5th Cir. 1997) (describing that a Franks violation âstates a valid cause of action under the Fourth Amendmentâ), abrogated on other grounds as recognized in Anokwuru, 990 F.3d at 964; see also Blake, 921 F.3d at 217-18 (discussing the plaintiffâs Malley and Franks âclaimsâ and making no mention of the independent intermediary doctrine). By contrast, despite its conceptual overlap with Franks, the âtaint exceptionâ to the independent intermediary doctrine is not a cause of actionâit is an exception to a doctrine that insulates an official who would otherwise be liable for a false arrest. See McLin, 866 F.3d at 689. In other words, no defendant is being held liable for âtaintingâ the intermediary as that concept is deployed within the independent intermediary doctrine. As a practical matter, in cases involving only one intermediary, the allegations that prove a Franks claim will do double duty as the allegations that also establish the taint exception. That is why, in addition to being an independent cause of action, this court also describes Franks as a functional exception to the independent intermediary doctrine, as discussed above. Terwilliger, 4 F.4th at 281. But in a Franks case where a second intermediary is involved, a plaintiff need only show that the deliberations of the intermediary were tainted such that the second intermediary, like the first, did not have âall the factsâ before it necessary to render an independent determination of probable cause. Winfrey, 901 F.3d at 497 (quoting Cuadra v. Hous. Indep. Sch. Dist., 626 F.3d 808, 813 (5th Cir. 2010)). To conclude otherwise would allow for scenarios that would render the independent intermediary doctrine meaningless. For example, assume that a police officer would be liable for a Franks violation for patently lying in a warrant affidavit submitted to a magistrate in order to arrest an individual innocent of a crime. And assume that after the individual is arrested, a prosecutor secures a separate witness to repeat identical lies in order to obtain a grand juryâs indictment. In such a scenario, no one could describe that the grand jury acted independently to determine probable cause or that its deliberations were not tainted, even though the defendant police officer was not presented as a witness to lie to the grand jury himself. See Winfrey, 901 F.3d at 497 (holding that the grand jury did not act as an independent intermediary because the âmaterial informationâ that was omitted from the arrest warrant affidavit was not shown to have been submitted to the grand jury).[2] In sum, while each defendant must fall within the scope of liability for the Franks violation alleged here (centering on the arrest warrant obtained from the magistrate),[3] there is no requirement to show that each and every defendant also tainted the secret grand jury deliberations.[4] 2. âAt common law, in cases where probable cause to arrest was lacking, [an officer's] immunity turned on the issue of malice, which was a jury question.â Malley, 475 U.S. at 341. Although that is no longer the case,[5] this courtâs jurisprudence on the independent intermediary doctrine developed when an officerâs malice was still the central inquiry for immunity. See Rodriguez v. Ritchey, 556 F.2d 1185, 1193 (5th Cir. 1977) (en banc); Smith v. Gonzales, 670 F.2d 522, 526 (5th Cir. 1982). Thus, in describing the doctrine, this court emphasized that an independent intermediaryâs decision would insulate an officer who had acted with malice in making an arrest without probable causeâi.e., an officer who would otherwise be liable for false arrest. See Thomas v. Sams, 734 F.2d 185, 191 (5th Cir. 1984) (citing Smith, 670 F.2d at 526)). But recognizing that an officerâs malice could lead him to undermine the intermediaryâs independence, this court clarified that âthe chain of causation is broken only where all the facts are presented to the grand jury, or other independent intermediary, where the malicious motive of the law enforcement officials does not lead them to withhold any relevant information from the independent intermediary.â Hand, 838 F.2d 1427-28 (emphasis added).[6] In short, our cases establishing the independent intermediary doctrine and the taint exception were concerned about the typical false arrest scenario of the eraâan officer who maliciously sought to arrest someone without probable cause. Now that the Supreme Court has subsequently made clear that there are false arrest claims for which an officer can be liable that do not turn on the officerâs maliceâe.g., Malley and Franks claimsâit is unclear why an actorâs âmaliceâ in tainting the intermediary is relevant in such cases. But regardless of its provenance, this court has continued to quote the âmalicious motiveâ language in modern cases when describing the independent intermediary doctrine and the taint exception. See, e.g., McLin, 866 F.3d at 689; Buehler, 824 F.3d at 554; Cuadra, 626 F.3d at 813. And although our independent intermediary cases rarely turn on the mens rea requirements of the taint exception, in cases where mens rea has been relevant, this court has held that â[t]o satisfy the taint exception, omissions of exculpatory information must be âknowing[].ââ Buehler, 824 F.3d at 555 (second alteration in original) (quoting Cuadra, 626 F.3d at 813-14). However, no case has applied this âknowingâ requirement when the underlying claim is premised on Malley or Franks. See generally Buehler, 824 F.3d 548 (making no mention of Malley or Franks); Cuadra, 626 F.3d 808 (same). As we have explained above, the reason why should be obvious: to do so would conflict with Supreme Court precedent. Again, the Supreme Court held in Malley that an officer who is objectively unreasonable in presenting a warrant application that facially lacks probable cause can be held liable for false arrest even if a magistrate approves it. 475 U.S. at 345-46. Nowhere does the Court describe that the officer must also âknowinglyâ misdirect the magistrate. Similarly, an officer can be liable under Franks for âdeliberately or recklesslyâ including a material false statement or omission in a warrant application submitted to a magistrate. Melton, 875 F.3d at 264 (emphasis added). To superimpose a stricter threshold of liability would supplant Supreme Court law. And although the grand jury here acts as a second intermediary, following the magistrate, nothing in this courtâs precedent suggests that the mens rea requirement with respect to the taint exception increases when a second intermediary is involved, or that magistrates and grand juries are treated differently. See Hand, 838 F.2d at 1427 (describing that an official will not be liable âif the facts supporting the warrant or indictment are put before an impartial intermediary such as a magistrate or a grand juryâ (emphasis removed) (quoting Sams, 734 F.3d at 191)). Thus, just as an adequately pled Malley or Franks claim will also suffice to functionally apply the taint exception to the magistrateâs decision, ante at 7-8, if a plaintiff adequately pleads that a second intermediary, such as a grand jury, has been misled in similar fashion, then the taint exception will apply to that intermediaryâs decision as well. C. Having clarified what the plaintiffs here must allege in order to satisfy the taint exception with respect to both the magistrate and the grand jury, the question remains whether their complaints have adequately done so. This court has squarely addressed a plaintiffâs burden at the pleading stage with respect to the taint exception. At the pleading stage, ââmere allegations of âtaintââ . . . may be adequate to survive a motion to dismiss where the complaint alleges other facts supporting the inference.â McLin, 866 F.3d at 690 (quoting Cuadra, 626 F.3d at 813). As always, the court must accept all factual allegations as true, evaluating whether the complaint states a plausible claim. Id.; Shaw v. Villanueva, 918 F.3d 414, 418 (5th Cir. 2019). Given that âa general rule of secrecy shrouds the proceedings of grand juries,â Shields v. Twiss, 389 F.3d 142, 147 (5th Cir. 2004), it is understandably difficult for a plaintiff to know what was saidâor wasnât saidâto the grand jury absent any form of discovery. While that reality doesnât excuse pleading requirements, it does mean that allegations about what was presented or omitted in the grand jury room will in some sense be speculative, which is why plaintiffs like the ones here will need to allege âother facts supporting the inferenceâ of what they allege to have occurred in the grand jury room. See McLin, 866 F.3d at 690.[7] Here, the plaintiffs allege that some of the same officials alleged to have participated in preparing the challenged warrant affidavit testified before the grand jury. They further allege that these officials made similar representations and omissions to the grand jury as they made to the magistrate. To further support such an inference, they allege that these same officials testified during public âexamining trialsâ related to the Twin Peaks arrests and allege that this testimony also resembled the representations made to the magistrate. The plaintiffs also claim that video evidence which materially undermined probable cause was withheld from the grand jury, similar to how the defendants allegedly withheld exculpatory video evidence from the magistrate. See Terwilliger, 4 F.4th at 283. Finally, the plaintiffs allege that they have attempted to gain lawful access to records of the grand jury proceedings but were told that no transcript of the proceedings exists, nor any other recording from which a transcript could be made. In sum, plaintiffs allege that specific representations and omissions that were made to the magistrate were also made to the grand jury and they allege âother factsâ that support that inference. The only remaining question is whether those representations were false and whether the omitted information was material to probable cause with respect to these plaintiffs. That question, as explained above, overlaps with whether plaintiffs have adequately alleged a Franks violation with respect to the warrant application presented to the magistrate.[8] We decline to decide whether the plaintiffs here have adequately pleaded a Franks violation with respect to any of the named defendants. This consolidated case comprises five separate appeals that in turn encompass close to twenty separate district court cause numbers and nearly 100 individual plaintiffs. While it may be the case that the plaintiffsâ theories are similar, individual pleadings may make the difference. More fundamentally, the district court did not reach the question below, instead resting its holding on a legally erroneous application of the independent intermediary doctrine. With the benefit of this courtâs decision in Terwilliger and the present decision clarifying our law with respect to the independent intermediary doctrine, the district court is best suited to decide in the first instance whether each plaintiff here has adequately alleged a Franks violation with respect to the arrest warrant, and, if so, whether each plaintiff has also adequately alleged that the taint exception should apply to the grand juryâs subsequent indictment. See Montano v. Texas, 867 F.3d 540, 546 (5th Cir. 2017) (â[A] court of appeals sits as a court of review, not of first view.â (citation omitted)). * * * We REVERSE and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.