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re: DOJ arrest soldier for $400k poly bet on Maduro capture

Posted on 4/24/26 at 7:11 am to
Posted by BigTigerJoe
Member since Aug 2022
14109 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 7:11 am to
In the subsequent interview with Luna concerning insider trading by members of Congress, she discussed the hypocrisy of prosecuting Gannon Ken Van Dyke. She went on to say that he could be pardoned.
quote:

Since she's colleagues with "morally bankrupt people," Rep. Anna Paulina joins "Rob Schmitt Tonight" for an inside look at the corruption, misbehavior and wrongdoing Americans have seen from lawmakers lately.

Posted by Mo Jeaux
Member since Aug 2008
63668 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 7:16 am to
quote:

I wondered this as well. He didn't take taxpayer money; he took it from people just like him betting on ridiculous things.

And I am not sure how this meets the definition of "insider trading".


What does taxpayer money or the success of the operation have to do with anything?
Posted by jrobic4
Baton Rouge
Member since Aug 2011
13269 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 7:18 am to
If he was a Senator, nothing would have happened to him
Posted by oldskule
Down South
Member since Mar 2016
25267 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 7:54 am to
Hey, they took his bet....and they lost! you would think they would research a large bet like that....the bookie made the mistake!

This is the new world platform, anything goes!
Posted by Pfft
Member since Jul 2014
5074 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 8:09 am to
The casino's don't like to loose. Too bad the american citizens don't have as much power to fight back against this type of activities. You like what our congress people do, on a regular basis.
Posted by bigjoe1
Member since Jan 2024
1863 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 8:26 am to
quote:

And I am not sure how this meets the definition of "insider trading". Sure, he had the knowledge that the raid was coming, but not of its success. Operational success was not a guarantee. It has been described as extremely high risk. If they had failed, he would have lost over $30K.


And here's the problem. It was a security breach. Had Maduro's security seen the bet they may well have been alerted that something was brewing and either moved him or been more alert thus putting the success of the mission at risk.
Those oil and stock trades prior to Epic Fury need to be investigated as well.
Posted by Ailsa
Member since May 2020
8408 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 11:48 am to
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quote:

I have two stacks on my desk. The left stack is financial disclosure forms from members of Congress. The right stack is waivers for members who filed their financial disclosures late.

The right stack is always taller.

On Wednesday morning, I watched a soldier get arrested on CNN.

I am a Disclosure Analyst for the House Ethics Committee. I have held this position for eleven years. My job is to receive the forms, verify their completeness, and file them. I do not investigate. I do not flag. I do not refer. I file. I have a lanyard. The lanyard says ETHICS.

The soldier's name is Gannon Ken Van Dyke. He is thirty-eight years old. He was stationed at Fort Bragg. He was Special Forces. In December, he created an account on a prediction market called Polymarket. On January 2nd, he bet $32,500 that the president of Venezuela would be removed from power. On January 3rd, he helped remove the president of Venezuela from power. He collected $409,881.

He has been charged with five federal crimes. Commodities fraud. Wire fraud. Unlawful use of confidential government information. Theft of nonpublic government information. Unlawful monetary transaction. The Department of Justice called it "the first-ever insider trading prosecution on event contracts."

I watched this on the television in our break room. Then I walked back to my desk and processed a late financial disclosure from a member of the House Financial Services Committee who purchased $250,000 in bank stocks eleven days before his subcommittee held a closed-door hearing on proposed capital reserve changes.

The filing was forty-seven days late. The STOCK Act requires disclosure within forty-five days. The penalty for late filing is $200.

I waived it.

I waive most of them. In 2021, fifty-four members of Congress and senior staff violated the reporting rules. The fines were minimal. Most were waived. I have a form for the waiver. The form has a box that says "Reason." I write "administrative delay." In ethics, "administrative delay" means the member's office forgot and then remembered when a reporter called. My approval rate is one hundred percent. In any other field, that number would trigger an audit. In mine, it is called thoroughness.

Let me show you what I processed this year.

January. A senator on the Armed Services Committee sold defense contractor shares worth $1.2 million. Three days later, his committee received a classified briefing that the Iran campaign had exceeded its projected cost by 340%. The stock dropped 8%. He filed the disclosure sixty-one days late. I calculated the fine. $200. His chief of staff asked if it could be waived. He did not ask what the senator traded on. Nobody asks that. The form does not have a field for it. I waived the fine. The senator's portfolio returned 23.4% in 2025. The S&P 500 returned 16.8%.

February. A representative on the Energy and Commerce Committee bought pharmaceutical stocks worth $400,000. Two weeks later, her committee advanced a bill that would extend patent exclusivity for the exact drug class she purchased. The stocks rose 14%. She filed on time. There was no fine. There was no investigation. There was nothing to investigate because buying stocks in companies regulated by your own committee is not illegal. It is legal. The STOCK Act made it legal by making it disclosed. In Congress, disclosed means legal. In my office, legal means filed.

March. A member whose spouse manages a portfolio worth $9.2 million reported forty-three separate transactions in a single quarter. Twelve of them were in sectors directly affected by legislation the member co-sponsored. The timing on eight of those twelve was within a two-week window of committee action. I logged all forty-three. None were flagged. We do not flag. We file.

I asked my supervisor once what would happen if I flagged a filing. She said we do not have a form for that. I never asked again.

In 2020, I processed 847 disclosures. In 2023, 1,211. In 2025, 1,614. The number of enforcement actions in each of those years was zero. The numerator changes. The denominator does not.

I want to tell you about the soldier again.

He made $409,881. He tried to delete his Polymarket account by calling customer service and saying he lost access to his email. He moved his profits into a foreign cryptocurrency vault and then into a new brokerage account. He used his real identity. He placed thirteen bets. Every single one was connected to an operation he personally participated in.

In my eleven years, I have processed disclosures from members of Congress who traded on:

Pending FDA approvals they learned about in committee.
Defense appropriations they voted on.
Trade policy they negotiated.
Pandemic response measures they drafted.
Interest rate decisions they were briefed on before the public.

None of them have been charged. None of them have been investigated by the Department of Justice. None of them have been referred to the SEC. The STOCK Act has produced zero prosecutions since it was signed on April 4th, 2012.

Fourteen years. Five hundred and thirty-five members. $635 million in trades last year alone. Zero cases.

My daughter asked me once what happens when someone breaks the rules. I told her we write it down. She asked what happens after that. I said it depends. She was nine. She is twenty now. It does not depend. Nothing happens after that.

The soldier made $409,881 and faces decades in prison. Nancy Pelosi entered Congress in 1987 with a portfolio worth approximately $785,000. It is now worth $133.7 million. That is a return of 16,930%. The Dow Jones returned 2,300% over the same period. Professional fund managers who beat the market for three consecutive years are considered exceptional. She has beaten it for thirty-seven. If a hedge fund produced those returns, the SEC would subpoena the records on a Thursday. She produced them from a building with a chapel and a gift shop.

She announced her retirement last year. No investigation was opened. No disclosure was flagged. Her filings were on time. In my office, on time means compliant. Compliant means closed.


This post was edited on 4/24/26 at 11:49 am
Posted by Ailsa
Member since May 2020
8408 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 11:48 am to
part 2
quote:

I want to tell you about the fine.

$200. That is the maximum penalty for violating the STOCK Act's disclosure requirements. $200 for a member of Congress whose portfolio gained $4.7 million in a single quarter. I calculated what $200 represents as a percentage of $4.7 million. It is 0.004%. I could not find a comparison that made it meaningful. It is less than the price of the parking pass in the Rayburn garage. It is less than lunch at the members' dining room if you order the crab cakes, which I am told are excellent though I eat at my desk.

Since 2012, thirty-one bills have been introduced to restrict congressional trading. I keep a list. The list is longer than the STOCK Act itself.

On March 5th, 2026, a representative from Michigan introduced the thirty-second. He called it the "No Getting Rich in Congress Act." The bill would prohibit the President, Vice President, members of Congress, and their spouses from trading individual stocks, cryptocurrency, futures, and commodities while in office.

The bill was referred to committee. The committee has not scheduled a hearing. The committee is chaired by a member whose spouse executed $2.1 million in trades last year.

The bill will be reviewed. In my office, reviewed means read. Read means acknowledged. Acknowledged means a status has been assigned. A status is the absence of an action that has been given a name so it looks like one.

The soldier used classified information to make $409,881 on a prediction market. He has been charged with five federal crimes. The Department of Justice announced the case on the same day I processed three disclosures from members who traded on committee knowledge worth a combined $3.8 million.

The difference between the soldier and the members is not what they did. It is the building they did it in. He did it from Fort Bragg. They did it from the Capitol. He used a prediction market. They used the New York Stock Exchange. He bet on a military operation. They bet on the legislation they write.

He did not write the law. They did. They wrote the STOCK Act. Then they funded its enforcement at zero dollars. Then they set its maximum penalty at $200. Then they gave my office the authority to waive it. Then they traded $635 million.

The soldier flew to Caracas. He breached a compound. He put his body between a mission and a bullet. The people who ordered the operation were in a building with a credenza and sparkling water. They did not go to Caracas. They went to their brokerage accounts. The soldier made $409,881 and is now in federal custody. The people who knew what he was going to do before he did it made more and filed less. His prosecution is not a failure of the system. It is the system. One conviction per decade, at the lowest level, so the briefing slides can say enforcement exists. The $409,881 is not the crime. It is the cost of making $635 million look supervised.

In my field, we call this self-regulation.

The soldier's Polymarket account has been frozen. His military career is over. He will spend years in federal prison. My office will process every congressional disclosure filed this year. Every trade logged. Every $200 fine calculated and waived. The system is immaculate.

Fourteen years. Zero prosecutions. $635 million a year. A 16,930% return.

I have not leaked a document. I have not filed a complaint. I have not deviated from the process one single time. The process was written by the people whose forms I process.

As long as the disclosures go up and the cases don't, my performance review says I am meeting expectations.

My lanyard still says ETHICS. In eleven years, nobody has asked me to define the word.
Posted by Night Vision
Member since Feb 2018
21944 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 4:02 pm to
Posted by Ailsa
Member since May 2020
8408 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 5:45 pm to
quote:

Night Vision


Luna is looking to have him pardoned.
Posted by JumpingTheShark
America
Member since Nov 2012
24834 posts
Posted on 4/24/26 at 6:03 pm to
Congress is allowed to do it
Posted by John somers
Los Proxima
Member since Oct 2024
1615 posts
Posted on 4/25/26 at 1:27 am to
quote:

I know that you’re a retard, but what?


I know you're a filthy democrat, but what?
Posted by trinidadtiger
Member since Jun 2017
19983 posts
Posted on 4/25/26 at 3:06 am to
quote:

The military has a Pete Rose problem.


First thing I thought of, Pete bet on his team to win. This ole baw did the same thing, its not like he was betting against us, let it ride.
Posted by trinidadtiger
Member since Jun 2017
19983 posts
Posted on 4/25/26 at 3:13 am to
quote:

If I saw Patrick Mahomes get shite faced and fall down a flight of stairs and break an ankle one Saturday night, would it be illegal if I placed a wager against the Chiefs for a Sunday noon game before that info was made public?


Did you notice the big conferences in college football and the college football playoffs now make it mandatory to list an injury list prior to kickoff. Now why on earth would they do that?

Posted by themunch
bottom of the list
Member since Jan 2007
71936 posts
Posted on 4/25/26 at 3:13 am to
He pissed some one off or just some jealous asshat lifer going after him.
Posted by trinidadtiger
Member since Jun 2017
19983 posts
Posted on 4/25/26 at 3:19 am to
Guys this insider trading stuff is the shiny object.

Remember when Pelosi loaded up a jet with liquor and her son and headed to Taiwan and caused a big stir with China? She had just pushed through the CHIPS act worth 100s of billions of dollars.....and heads to the epicenter of chip making......wonder why she would do that????

So the "good" reason for the CHIPs act was to manufacture chips in the US, course we all thought that meant American companies. The "real" reason for the CHIPs act is so our politicians could dole out 100s of billions of tax dollars, sell out America, and pocket a few billion for themselves.

If we can track down IRGC money through a dozen offshore accounts including untraceable bitcoin......we could easily find the money our politicians are hiding offshore if we wanted to.
Posted by mtb010
San Antonio
Member since Sep 2009
6580 posts
Posted on 4/25/26 at 3:46 am to
If only he was on the Epstein list he could have avoided being arrested altogether.
Posted by Neutral Underground
Member since Mar 2024
3354 posts
Posted on 4/25/26 at 4:30 am to
He is fooked. Especially since he was on the planning team. To bad he isn't a politician.
Posted by Bunk Moreland
Member since Dec 2010
68375 posts
Posted on 4/25/26 at 7:03 am to
Posted by Night Vision
Member since Feb 2018
21944 posts
Posted on 4/25/26 at 7:11 am to
Wish Luna would pardon me.
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