Federal regulators are investigating former Rep. Adam Kinzinger for trading on the prediction platform Kalshi about a pardon he received from former President Joe Biden, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Biden pardoned Kinzinger last year during the final hours of his presidency, along with other members of the House committee that investigated Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The preemptive pardons were needed, Biden argued, to protect the lawmakers from possible retaliation by the incoming Trump administration.

Prediction platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket let users wager on nearly everything - including sports, entertainment, elections and other political news.

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Kinzinger, a Republican and prominent Trump critic, traded less than $1,000 on two pardon-related Kalshi markets in late 2024 and early 2025, sources said, and betted that he would get a pardon from Biden.

He acknowledged making the trades in an interview with CNN but said he never had any insider information about the pardons. He was a private citizen at the time of the trades - out of Congress and not running for office. Kinzinger is a CNN contributor.

A person familiar with the matter said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator that polices prediction markets, is looking into Kinzinger's trades. Career enforcement officials started scrutinizing the Biden pardon markets on both Kalshi and Polymarket after seeing press reports about potential insider activity, the source said.

Politico previously reported the CFTC inquiry into Kinzinger, which is the first publicly known federal probe into pardon markets on prediction sites.

The CFTC and Kalshi declined to comment.

 It was a dumb bet'

In an interview with CNN, Kinzinger admitted to making the trades, saying they were two of a  few dozen  bets he placed about political topics. He said he had reviewed Kalshi's rules beforehand and that he believed his actions did not violate the rules. He shared screen

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