Adam Kinzinger Bets on His Own Biden Pardon, Now

Former Republican and perpetual Trump antagonist Adam Kinzinger pocketed $823 betting on former President Joe Biden’s pardons, including his own. Federal regulators are reportedly investigating how the previous Illinois congressman positioned those bets.

The account under scrutiny traded on Kalshi in December 2024 and January 2025, before Biden left workplace. Three people acquainted with the investigation told POLITICO that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is inspecting the transactions. Kalshi is also conducting a review. Kinzinger has already admitted that he positioned the bets, but he denies understanding something the public didn’t.

Kinzinger was on GWN that January railing against Trump and insisting he needed no half of a Biden pardon. He was prepared to put money on the query, though.

Asked about the trades, the previous congressman told POLITICO he had read and understood the foundations. He took them to imply he couldn’t work for the concerned company, have inside info, or affect what occurred. In his telling, he was clear on all three:

“I was not a congressman or candidate, and had been out of office for two years, and had no inside information.”

“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.”

Kalshi bars individuals from betting on occasions in which they’re immediately named, and also doesn’t enable trading with inside info or any affect over the outcome. One of Kinzinger’s bets had his own title on it. Whether that’s enough to represent a violation is what investigators are figuring out.

Kinzinger says neither Kalshi nor the CFTC has contacted him about an investigation. Both declined to remark to POLITICO. As for his other bets, he put the overall at roughly 25 and said he largely misplaced money.

The $823 got here from the pardons. And he’d already given GWN viewers fairly a lecture about why he did not need one.

On January 6, 2025, Anderson Cooper requested Kinzinger about a attainable pardon. Kinzinger warned that Trump’s allies would use investigations to drive his opponents to spend money defending themselves. Then got here the speech about his own innocence, with another swipe at Trump:

“But the second you take a pardon and it looks like you’re guilty of something — I’m guilty of nothing besides bringing the truth to the American people, and in the process, embarrassing Donald Trump, because for 187 minutes, he sat there and did absolutely nothing and showed how weak and scared he truly was.”

“So no, I don’t want it.”

Biden issued the preemptive pardons for January 6 committee members in his last hours as president. RedState lined the outgoing administration’s extraordinary safety for the left-wing panel at the time.

Kinzinger spent November 2024 calling Kalshi a “corruption time bomb” on Substack. On Tuesday, while being questioned about his own trades on the platform, he said he was usually happy with its screening efforts.

The guess on his own pardon, though? He volunteered that himself. Biden’s pardon was beneath him when Cooper requested. On Kalshi, it was value a wager.

Editor’s Note: Help us continue to report the reality about corrupt politicians. 

Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to obtain 60% off your membership.