George Santos has found yet another way to turn politics into performance art. The former New York congressman, already expelled from Congress, convicted in a federal fraud case and released after President Donald Trump commuted his sentence, is now reportedly under investigation by the Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over suspicious trading on Kalshi, the prediction-market platform where users can wager on real-world events.

According to the Associated Press, Kalshi referred Santos to federal prosecutors after detecting trades tied to whether he would attend Trump’s February State of the Union Address. Santos had publicly suggested he would go. He allegedly bet against his own attendance. He then did not attend.

UPDATE: The Daily Wire says: “Two Department of Justice sources told The Daily Wire that the agency is not investigating former Rep. George Santos over allegations that he profited by betting against his own attendance at President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. Kalshi appears to be investigating Santos, but reports that federal prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation following the company’s referral are false.”

For years, members of Congress have been criticized for trading stocks while supposedly sitting on information ordinary investors cannot access. Now the same ethical disease has migrated from the stock market to political betting markets, where the product is not a company’s quarterly earnings report but the behavior of public officials themselves. Santos, if the reporting is accurate, did not need to learn about a pending merger, a defense contract, or a classified strike. He only needed to know what George Santos planned to do.

Santos has always occupied the gray zone between politics and theater. He entered Congress after constructing a public biography that collapsed almost immediately under basic scrutiny. His résumé, finances, religious background, education, employment history, and personal narrative all became part of a national scandal. Federal prosecutors later charged him in a case involving wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and false statements. The House eventually expelled him, an extraordinary step normally reserved for the most ethically compromised figures in American public life.

Santos was not merely another politician caught embellishing his biography. He became a one-man audit of how much fiction the political system can absorb before voters, parties, and institutions finally admit they have been had.

The Kalshi allegations, if proven, would fit the pattern almost too neatly. Santos allegedly watched a market form around his own conduct, publicly fed expectations about that conduct, and then stood to profit when reality moved in the other direction.

Betting platforms like Kalshi are creating financial incentives around political behavior, public appearances, executive decisions, elections, court rulings, military operations, and diplomatic events. The more specific the contract, the more vulnerable the market becomes to someone with inside knowledge or direct control. A senator knows whether he plans to resign. A campaign operative knows when an announcement will drop. A staffer knows whether a bill has enough votes. A soldier knows whether a classified operation is moving forward. A disgraced ex-congressman knows whether he is actually going to show up.

Congress has noticed, though in typical Washington fashion, only after the loophole was already large enough to invite abuse. House Oversight Chairman James Comer recently launched an investigation into insider trading on prediction-market platforms, requesting documents from Kalshi and Polymarket about identity verification, geographic restrictions, and suspicious trading safeguards. The committee cited concerns about users exploiting nonpublic information, including cases involving political figures and a federal indictment alleging that a U.S. Army master sergeant used classified information to win more than $400,000 on Polymarket.

Kalshi can argue, with some justification, that referring suspicious activity to regulators shows the system working. That is partly true. A market that detects misconduct is better than one that shrugs at it. But detection after the trade does not erase the underlying incentive. If political contracts become large enough, fast enough, and specific enough, insiders will see opportunities before compliance departments see patterns.

Santos may not be guilty of insider trading. Federal investigators will have to prove whatever case they believe exists. But as a symbol, he is almost too perfect: a politician famous for inventing his own story, now reportedly under scrutiny for betting on his own plot twist.