Federal regulators are probing former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, over bets he placed on his pardon.
Citing three people familiar with the matter, Politico reported on Tuesday that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been examining trades made in December 2024 and January 2025 by a Kalshi account tied to the Illinois Republican. Kalshi, a prediction market platform that says it monitors for insider trading on political events, is reportedly conducting its own review of the activity.
Kinzinger was among the members of the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack who received preemptive pardons from former President Joe Biden in the final hours of his term. Trump had previously called for the panel’s members to be jailed.
Kinzinger acknowledged placing the bets but maintained he followed Kalshi’s rules as he understood them and knew nothing in advance about the pardons.
“I was not a congressman or candidate, and had been out of office for two years, and had no inside information,” Kinzinger told Politico.
“I had read [the] rules of Kalshi before making wagers, and general prohibitions were that you could not work for a source agency,… influence its outcome, or have non-public information about it,” he added. “I felt confident in this because I had never had a conversation with anyone about [the pardons], much less anyone anywhere near the White House.”
The former lawmaker told Politico he bet on one contract asking whether he would be pardoned and another on whether Biden would hand out preemptive pardons before leaving office. Screenshots he shared showed a profit of $823. He said he made “25 or so” trades during that period and lost money on most of them.
Kinzinger said neither the agency nor Kalshi has reached out to him about the probe. The CFTC and Kalshi declined to comment, as did the White House.
Kalshi bars users from trading on contracts in which they are direct participants, and the CFTC forbids using material nonpublic information to gain an advantage in the markets it oversees.
In March 2025, Trump declared on Truth Social that the pardons issued to Kinzinger and his fellow committee members were “void” and that those who received them were “subject to investigation at the highest level.”
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