The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has opened an investigation into former Representative Adam Kinzinger over prediction-market trades he placed on his own presidential pardon, according to a Politico report citing three people with knowledge of the matter.

Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois who left Congress in January 2023, executed trades through a Kalshi account in December 2024 and January 2025. One contract resolved on whether he personally would receive a pardon from then-President Joe Biden. A second contract covered whether Biden would issue preemptive pardons before leaving office.

Biden signed those pardons in his final hours on January 20, 2025, preemptively clearing Kinzinger and other members of the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Donald Trump, inaugurated hours later, had publicly urged that the committee's members be jailed.

Kinzinger told Politico the trading generated only modest gains: $823 across roughly 25 positions, with most closing at a loss. Screenshots he provided backed up those figures.

He denies any wrongdoing. "I had been out of office for two years when I placed the bets," he said, adding that he was neither a congressman nor a candidate and had "no inside information." He reviewed Kalshi's terms of service before trading and understood them to bar participation where a user works for the relevant agency, can influence the outcome, or holds non-public information, he said. He added that he never discussed the pardons with anyone.

What rules are in play?

Two regulatory tracks apply. Kalshi's market rules bar users from trading on contracts in which they are direct participants. The Commodity Exchange Act, enforced by the CFTC, separately prohibits the use of material nonpublic information on CFTC-regulated markets.

Kalshi has been reviewing the transactions in parallel, Politico reported. Both the exchange and the agency declined to comment. Kinzinger said neither had contacted him about the investigation.

Why is the case drawing scrutiny now?

The inquiry lands as the CFTC sharpens its oversight of event-contract markets with identifiable individual subjects. Agency staff told exchanges last week that contracts settling on the words or conduct of a named individual should be presumed open to manipulation. That guidance arrived about a month after the CFTC fined a former White House teleprompter operator $172,000 over trades on presidential-mention markets.

Kinzinger had previously been a vocal Kalshi critic. In a November Substack post he objected to contracts on which senator would first visit Syria and on how each House member would vote on releasing the Epstein files, calling such markets "a corruption time bomb" and writing that "a platform that lets insiders (and legislators) gamble on their own behavior is a threat to democracy." He told Politico he now feels broadly satisfied with how Kalshi's screening has matured.

How has Kalshi handled comparable cases?

The exchange has already enforced against self-dealing by political insiders. It suspended three congressional candidates in April over bets on their own races. It also froze the account of former Representative George Santos after he traded against his own attendance at the State of the Union while publicly stating he planned to attend, referring the matter to the CFTC and the Justice Department before banning him for life in late August.

Kinzinger's case sits at a different altitude. The select committee he served on drew sustained attacks from Trump, who has continued to contest the legitimacy of the January 6 investigation. In a March 2025 Truth Social post, Trump called the preemptive pardons "void" and said the recipients were "subject to investigation at the highest level." The White House declined to comment to Politico.

The CFTC's enforcement posture in this matter, and its parallel market-structure guidance on single-name contracts, will shape how exchanges police insider positioning on prediction platforms through the remainder of the year.