Adam Kinzinger Faces Federal Financial Regulator Investigation
Conservative principles face implementation challenges as policy meets political complexity.
Adam Kinzinger spent years on television explaining, in great moral detail, why everyone else had failed the country. He was the Republican who knew better. Now we learn he may have been busy working the commodities markets at the same time.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger is being investigated by a top federal financial regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), for trades he made on the prediction market Kalshi, tied to his pardon by former President Joe Biden.
A wild @AidenReiter scoop. The CFTC is investigating @AdamKinzinger for @Kalshi trading tied to his pardon by Biden. Kinzinger tells us he made the trades after leaving office and they were in accordance with Kalshi’s rules, making him $823. https://t.co/oVHq67F41p pic.twitter.com/ghDA74bxel Kinzinger retired from Congress in 2023.
In January 2025, in Biden’s final hours as president, he preemptively pardoned Kinzinger and other members of the House select committee that had investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol after Trump had called for them to be jailed.
In a statement, Kinzinger said he made trades related to his presidential pardon but added that they were in accordance with what he perceived to be Kalshi’s rules at the time. He also said he had no inside information related to whether he would receive a pardon. “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.” Kinzinger, who represented Illinois' 16th Congressional District until 2023, reportedly said he placed wagers on whether he would receive a presidential pardon, and a separate wager on whether Biden would issue preemptive pardons before leaving office in 2025.
Breaking: Former Congressman is now under federal investigation for insider trading after calling prediction markets a "corruption time bomb" Adam Kinzinger put $669 on Kalshi that Biden would pardon him and he made $823 Kalshi flagged it as suspicious and the CFTC is now… pic.twitter.com/RRToXtnqTS Kinzinger provided screenshots that show he made about 25 trades and made $823.
Politico: Financial regulator investigates Adam Kinzinger over Kalshi trading The CFTC is targeting trades the former House Republican made related to his Biden-era pardon. Link to article: https://t.co/qs1kAB8m9J pic.twitter.com/rgLuQCeG1z He has insisted he did not have insider information on the pardons prior to placing his wagers on Kalshi.
Can confirm reports that the CFTC is probing Trump critic and ex-Rep. Adam Kinzinger for betting on his own Biden-era pardon. Kinzinger told me "it was a dumb bet" but said he never had any inside info AND he believed Kalshi's rules allowed the trades https://t.co/gNAJRc0AGd The CFTC and Kalshi declined to comment to Politico, which also reported that Kinzinger said he has not been contacted by the agency or the prediction market platform about the investigation.
Kinzinger made his name by trying to be a Republican critic of President Trump. Now he's out of Congress and facing a federal investigation. Editor’s Note: Help us continue to report the truth about corrupt politicians.
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Adam Kinzinger spent years on television explaining, in great moral detail, why everyone else had failed the country. He was the Republican who knew better. Now we learn he may have been busy working the commodities markets at the same time. The CFTC is investigating trades he made on Kalshi that were tied to his pardon from Joe Biden. In plain English: he may have bet on the odds of his own pardon, then collected when it happened.
There is a word for trading on information you have because you’re inside the story. It isn’t capitalism. It’s the kind of thing that makes ordinary people roll their eyes at the whole political class. Kinzinger sat on the January 6 committee, built a career on righteous indignation, and accepted a pardon from President Biden. Now he has to answer for whether he tried to cash in on the one fact only he truly knew: that he was going to be protected from legal consequences.
Imagine, for two seconds, if this were a Trump ally. The cable chyrons would be relentless. Every regulator on the planet would be dusting off subpoenas before sunrise. But for a Never Trump icon, the reaction is a quiet “we’ll take a look.” That double standard is the real scandal underneath the trades. The law should not have one rule for repentant celebrities and another for everyone else.
Maybe Kinzinger has a perfectly innocent explanation. Maybe the investigation will amount to nothing. But he made his name demanding absolute accountability from everyone he disliked. He deserves the same scrutiny he demanded of others. That’s not a principle. That’s just honesty. Let’s see where the investigation goes, and let’s watch how the same people who called every Trump inquiry righteous handle this one.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.