Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is calling on the White House to pardon a U.S. Army soldier accused of using classified military secrets to win a $400,000 windfall on a prediction market.
Luna (R-Fla.) took to social media on Thursday to defend Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a 38-year-old soldier stationed at Fort Bragg, arguing that his prosecution represents a double standard compared to how the government treats insider trading within its own halls.
Van Dyke was a planner for the high-stakes U.S. military operation that resulted in the Jan. 3 capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
According to federal prosecutors, Van Dyke used his knowledge of the upcoming mission to place $33,000 in bets on the platform Polymarket between late December and early January. When the operation successfully concluded with Maduro’s arrest on narcoterrorism charges, Van Dyke’s wagers paid out roughly $409,881.
READ: Washington Tightens The Grip: Massive New Sanctions Strike Iran’s Oil Pipelines To China
“Maybe not a popular take, but I am calling for this guy to be pardoned,” Luna wrote on X. While she noted that she does not support Van Dyke’s actions and believes he should return the money, she framed the legal pursuit as “skewed justice.” Luna argued that the Department of Justice should not target the soldier unless it plans to go after “all the crooks in congress currently insider trading.”
The indictment against Van Dyke includes three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, one count of wire fraud, and one count of an unlawful money transaction.
Prosecutors allege that as the trades began to draw attention, Van Dyke tried to cover his tracks by asking Polymarket to delete his account and moving his winnings to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before eventually depositing them into a new brokerage account.
Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, characterized the case as a textbook breach of duty.
“The defendant allegedly violated the trust placed in him by the United States Government by using classified information about a sensitive military operation to place bets on the timing and outcome of that very operation,” Clayton said in a statement, adding that prediction markets are not a “haven” for misappropriating secret data.
READ: Billionaire Exodus: Florida Sen. Rick Scott Slams New York’s New Property Tax As ‘Death Spiral’
The possibility of a pardon has already entered the national conversation. During a recent broadcast, President Trump compared the soldier’s situation to that of baseball legend Pete Rose, remarking that while betting against one’s own team is “no good,” Van Dyke effectively “bet on his own team.”
Legal analysts suggested that the case represents a new frontier for insider trading laws as prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi grow in popularity.
Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig noted on CNN that while the use of the statute in this context is “creative and interesting,” the soldier’s fiduciary duty to the government makes the trades illegal. Honig also observed that Trump’s public sympathy for Van Dyke puts the case on “high pardon alert.”
Please make a small donation to the Tampa Free Press to help sustain independent journalism. Your contribution enables us to continue delivering high-quality, local, and national news coverage.
Sign up: Subscribe to our free newsletter for a curated selection of top stories delivered straight to your inbox
