DOJ investigating former congressman George Santos for insider trading: report

The Justice Department is investigating former congressman George Santos for allegedly winning tens of thousands of dollars from an insider trading scheme on the prediction market platform Kalshi, according to a new report Wednesday.

In February, Santos announced on X that he was going to be at President Donald Trump's "State of the Union" speech. On Kalshi at the time, traders were betting on who would attend the speech. Santos' post sent odds of his attendance soaring. 

However, Santos posted on X during the speech that he was stuck in an airport, and the odds of his attendance on Kalshi plummeted. Santos had already placed bets on Kalshi that he wasn't going to attend the speech, NPR reported, citing anonymous sources. 

Kalshi detected Santos' trades and froze his account. The site referred the matter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Department of Justice, which opened investigations into Santos, according to the sources.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Justice Department didn't respond to NPR's request for comment, and Kalshi declined to comment. Santos told NPR he wasn't aware of the investigation, and he neither confirmed nor denied having a Kalshi account. 

Santos received a 7-year prison sentence for fraud that began in July 2025. President Trump commuted his sentence the following October, highlighting that "George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated."