George Santos Strikes Again

In 2024, the pathological liar, aka drag queen Kitara Ravache, aka the former New York congressman, pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, and got himself some much-needed time off in prison. To give you a brief refresher on his track record: he stole from political donors, misappropriated campaign funds for personal expenses, collected unemployment despite being employed, and lied to Congress about his wealth. And now, four months after being released from federal prison, it looks like Santos can cross insider trading off his crime bucket list. 

On Tuesday, NPR reported that the DOJ was pursuing yet another investigation into Santos over shady trades on the prediction market site Kalshi. Prior to this year’s State of the Union address, Santos posted a video on Twitter, dispelling rumors from “the trolls” that, because he was barred from the House floor, he was not allowed to attend the SOTU. Santos explained that he was still allowed in the gallery and would definitely attend the event…thus sending the Kalshi odds soaring.

State of the union update! pic.twitter.com/y9nrYpCyU4

— George Santos (@Georgesantos) February 23, 2026

But by now we should know better than to believe anything he says. As Trump delivered his SOTU address, Santos posted to X, “Watching SOTU from an airport tv was not part of the plan! FML.”

Watching SOTU from an airport tv was not part of the plan! FML 😡🤬

— George Santos (@Georgesantos) February 24, 2026

According to NPR, Santos had already placed a bet on his personal Kalshi account that he would not attend the event, and made tens of thousands of dollars by using the initial Twitter video to inflate the odds. Given that this was not a very sophisticated scheme, he was, unsurprisingly, caught red-handed (again), as Kalshi froze his account and reported the trades to the DOJ.

Unfortunately, insider trading cases like these will only become more commonplace as prediction markets continue to spiral out of control. In April, a U.S. special operations team member, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, was caught making “trades” on Polymarket regarding the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and in May, 60 Minutes reported on a small data analytics firm, Bubblemaps, that discovered a group of connected Polymarket traders raking in $2.4 million from winning bets—almost exclusively on U.S. military operations. Together, the traders had a whopping 98% win rate, or the same odds as winning the lottery multiple times. “Luck alone cannot explain those numbers,” said head of the firm Nicolas Vaiman. Hooray, corruption! Don’t you just love 2026?

Forever a lover of the limelight, Santos responded to NPR’s request for comment with “Well, that’s news to me.” When NPR asked him about whether he had a Kalshi account, Santos responded, “I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no.” Old habits die hard.