CNN Legal Expert Predicts Trump Pardon for Soldier Who Made More Than $400K on Maduro Takedown Bet

CNN’s Elie Honig foresees a pardon from President Donald Trump for the soldier facing federal charges for betting that Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro would be removed from his post by January while participating in the planning of the operation that brought Maduro to justice.

Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke allegedly placed $32,000 in bets to that effect after opening up an account on Polymarket shortly before he participated in the operation that saw Maduro forcibly extradited to the United States.

Van Dyke made more than $400,000 off the wager, but has now been indicted for stealing and misusing confidential government information, theft, and fraud.

On Friday’s edition of Inside Politics, host Dana Bash played a clip of Trump comparing Van Dyke to Pete Rose — “now if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team” — before asking Honig for his take on the situation.

The former federal prosecutor obliged her by offering the following commentary:

So it’s interesting, first of all, to hear the guy who built and then essentially tore down all the casinos in Atlantic City say the whole world is a casino. He’s right, though. I mean, these prediction markets, Polymarket and Kalshi being the two biggest ones, are Pandora’s boxes. And they lead to all sorts of potential problems, including but not limited to this temptation of people who have sensitive inside information to then go use it and try to cash in.

But I think there’s an important lesson here, which is if you have sensitive information like this that you are responsible for, what lawyers would call a fiduciary duty, you cannot go out and bet on it because you will be charged with insider trading just like this soldier was, just like if you were trading on insider information at a law firm, at a brokerage, on Wall Street. And so I think it’s a creative and interesting –and I think probably will be effective — use of this statute.

However, the comment Donald Trump just said has me on high pardon alert, right? He’s already sympathizing with this guy and don’t be shocked — I’m not going to say bet — but don’t be shocked if this guy ends up getting a pardon.

Watch above via CNN.

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