Daily Bar News

Todays Date: Click here to add this website to your favorites
  rss
Bar News Search >>>
law firm web design
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
D.C.
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Mass.
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
N.Carolina
N.Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
S.Carolina
S.Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
W.Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
•  Legal Press News - Legal News


A U.S. special forces soldier involved in the military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been charged with using classified information about the mission to win more than $400,000 in an online betting market, federal officials announced Thursday.

Gannon Ken Van Dyke was part of the operation to capture Maduro in January and used his access to classified information to make money on the prediction market site Polymarket, the federal prosecutor's office in New York said.

He has been charged by the Justice Department with unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and making an unlawful monetary transaction. He could face years in prison.

Van Dyke, 38, was involved in the planning and execution of capturing Maduro for about a month beginning Dec. 8, 2025, according to the federal prosecutor's office. Even though he signed nondisclosure agreements promising to not divulge "any classified or sensitive information" related to the operations, prosecutors say the Army soldier used this information to make a series of bets related to Maduro being out of power by Jan. 31, 2026.

"This involved a U.S. soldier who allegedly took advantage of his position to profit off of a righteous military operation," FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post to social media.

A telephone number listed for Van Dyke in public records was not in service. There was not yet an attorney listed for him in court documents.

Polymarket, one of the largest prediction markets in the world, said it had found someone trading on classified government information, alerted the U.S. Department of Justice and "cooperated with their investigation."

"Insider trading has no place on Polymarket," the company said in a statement.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets, announced Thursday it had filed a parallel complaint against Van Dyke.

That complaint alleges that Van Dyke moved $35,000 from his personal bank account into a cryptocurrency exchange account on Dec. 26 — a little over a week before U.S. forces would fly into Caracas and seize Maduro.

Van Dyke used more than $32,500 to make a series of bets on when Maduro might be removed from power, according to the complaint. He placed those bets between Dec. 30 and Jan. 2, with the vast majority occurring the night of Jan. 2 — just hours before the first missiles would fall on Caracas.

In the early hours of Jan. 3, President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform a photo of the now-captured Venezuelan leader, wearing a gray sweatsuit, headphones and a blindfold.

The bets Van Dyke made on Maduro leaving power resulted in "more than $404,000 of profits," the complaint said. Bets on three other Venezuela-related contracts netted the solider more than $5,000, according to the document.

"The defendant was entrusted with confidential information about U.S. operations and yet took action that endangered U.S. national security and put the lives of American service members in harm's way," said Michael Selig, the commission's chairman.

The massive profits from the well-timed bets aroused public attention days after the raid and brought bipartisan calls for stricter regulation of the markets where people can wager on just about anything.

Officials allege that shortly after the operation, Van Dyke put most of the money he won in a foreign cryptocurrency vault and then into a new brokerage account. He also asked Polymarket to delete his account, saying he had lost access to his email associated with the account, according to the federal prosecutor's office.




The Supreme Court is taking up one of the term's most consequential cases, President Donald Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens, and he was in the courtroom on Wednesday to attend the arguments.

The justices will hear Trump's appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions, one of several courts that have blocked them. They have not taken effect anywhere in the country.

Trump is the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation's highest court. Crowds watched from the sidewalks as his motorcade drove along Constitution and Independence Avenues, passing the Washington Monument and the National Mall on the way to the court building.

The case frames another test of Trump's assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court that has largely ruled in the president's favor — but with some notable exceptions that Trump has responded to with starkly personal criticisms of the justices. A definitive ruling is expected by early summer.

The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration's broad immigration crackdown.

Birthright citizenship is the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.

Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs decision, saying he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.

He issued a preemptive broadside against the court on Sunday on his Truth Social platform. "Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America. It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!," the president wrote. "Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!"

Trump's order would upend the long-standing view that the Constitution's 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, and federal law since 1940 confer citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.




The Supreme Court said that it will hear from oil and gas companies trying to block lawsuits seeking to hold the industry liable for billions of dollars in damage linked to climate change.

The conservative-majority court agreed to take up a case from Boulder, Colorado, among a series of lawsuits alleging the companies deceived the public about how fossil fuels contribute to climate change.

Governments around the country have sought damages totaling billions of dollars, arguing it's necessary to help pay for rebuilding after wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms worsened by climate change. The lawsuits come amid a wave of legal actions in states including California, Hawaii and New Jersey and worldwide seeking to leverage action through the courts.

Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil appealed to the Supreme Court after Colorado's highest court let the Boulder case proceed. The companies argue emissions are a national issue that should be heard in federal court, where similar suits have been tossed out.

President Donald Trump's administration weighed in to support the companies and urge the justices to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court decision, saying it would mean every locality in the country could sue essentially anyone in the world for contributing to global climate change.

Trump, a Republican, has criticized the lawsuits in an executive order, and the Justice Department has sought to head some off in court.

Attorneys for Boulder had agued that the litigation is still in early stages and should stay in state court.


ⓒ Daily Bar News - All Rights Reserved.

The content contained on the web site has been prepared by Daily Bar News
as a service to the internet community and is not intended to constitute legal advice or
a substitute for consultation with a licensed legal professional in a particular case or circumstance.

Affordable Law Firm Website Design by Law Promo