Nabbing the little guy for show, very much like Henry Hill taking one for Paulie and the gang. The same gang that robbed the Lufthansa vault at JFK Airport, stealing six million dollars in cash and jewelry.
When the history of this administration is written, provided that history itself has not been completely rewritten a la "1984," Goodfellas will be required reading/watching.
And the highly profitable daily mood-induced oil price bets will just be forgotten.
Wilhoit's Law:
Wilhoit's law.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
This might burst some bubbles but this is absolutely a little guy because anything below a field grade officer (or the CSM sidekick below brigade) is a little guy and a battalion is actually quite low on the food chain.
Yes, there are some hard working NCOs and junior Os out there that make shit happen, but they are not the decision makers and make for great fall guys when shit hits the fan.
I read this as "why are they going after a soldier who made $30k when they could be going after guys who made seven figures off of expertly timed trades on going to war with Iran"
Pursuing this case doesn’t mean they’re excluding other cases. If you read the article this case was very clear because he made amateur moves and didn’t conceal his identity at all.
This was an easy nab. All leaks should be pursued regardless of who did it.
As other comments said, this wasn’t exactly a “little guy” in rank.
He also made it all very obvious and traceable for them through the email addresses he used. From the report it doesn’t appear that he made any effort to conceal his identity or hide his tracks until afterward, by which time it was too late.
I don’t know why people are trying to defend this guy. We should be upset when anyone tries to use confidential information for personal gain. It’s also a security risk if anyone is incentivized to place bets based on confidential info.
I know you’re trying to make a separate point about Congress, but it’s silly to try to turn this into a class warfare thing. Congress didn’t even have this information at the time.
Because the path to Rule of Law is not deleting/refusing to enforce all laws.
Rule of Law means no one is above the law. In practice this is an aspiration (in the U.S. and everywhere else) but giving up on that isn’t going to make the world better.
When the history of this administration is written
I often think about how much we can trust history 20-30 years from now. It is hard to trust history from hundreds of years ago, either because it was written by victors or because there just isn't enough material in the first place. I suppose we have the opposite problem now (and in the future) - too much noise and junk, whole bunch of it generated by AI slop - where does one even start?
Everything about this statement is completely wrong.
False, conspiratorial, dogmatic, juvenile.
The arrest and indictment of someone for betting on Polymarket - which has not yet been tested in court - is going to give huge attention and precedence to the likely illegal activities of some of Polymarket shenanigans coming out of the white house.
Edit: if this was political, it would be pushed in the other direction. This is the NY DOJ doing their jobs.
I don't think this is going to be Hacker News fascinating discourse, but the current USA administration is so openly, brazenly, continuously, gleefully corrupt; continuously fire people with ethics and competence and bring in the in-group of equally corrupt ; and have continuously been rewarded for that behaviour; that I feel the OP is merely observationally factual.
The current Executive is 'brazenly criminal', yes, but there is nothing much 'factual; about the OP's comment.
None of this remotely has to do with 'Conservatism', it's certainly not ideological, and it's likely not political either.
This indictment is going to cause a massive headache for White House as they have likely been involved in 'insider trading'.
This is actually regular Justice, finally seeing some movement, to cynically characterize it as otherwise, totally against common sense (aka it's bad for the WH) is just unsound. I think it demonstrates the kind of bubble a lot of people live in, which is maybe understandable in the current climate, where horrible behaviours have gone unpunished. But still. This is the story of a state doj doing their job.
It's by the Southern District of NY and the case will get national attention.
This is a hugely negative thing for the Administration, as District Attorneys, SEC staff, etc. are going to be actively seeking how this could parlay into investigations and indictments of the people in the White House making Polymarket and other speculative bets just before government actions.
There are 100's lawyers reading that right now getting inspired on how they can take action to turn their investigative powers onto whoever those actors are aka family members or associates of those in the White House / Cabinet.
An investigation could be done at the State Level, away from the control of the DoJ, and, if it yields evidence, it wouldn't have to even make it's way through the courts in order to be political destructive.
The suggestion by the OP this has anything to do with ideology or the ruling power throwing one under the bus is ridiculous. Note that the ruling regime isn't above such a thing, but that's not what is happening here because it definitely does not serve their interests - it's the total opposite.
This could turn into a political nightmare that crashes the party.
Edit: if we want to be 'hopefully cynical' - recognize that this could absolutely be the vector that takes the man down, or even many of them. Imagine how many WH, Cabinet Members, family members could get investigated for this and under purvue of state investigators where the investigation can't get shut down.
For everyone saying this isn't some little guy... compared to the administration which is engaging in the same thing, it's a little guy designed to be a distraction.
Authority-wise, a MSG in the army isn't exactly a little guy either. That's quite a senior role. In their battalion they likely head either operations, intelligence or supply.
This isn't joe schlub making side bets here. This is a senior late-career enlisted in an extremely sensitive position violating all of their trust and authority to cash out big.
That MSG works for a Captain or a Lieutenant. If said MSG is good, there might be a future of advising a commanding officer on uniforms and length of grass at increasingly higher echelons. The rank is not newsworthy.
Wilholt's essay is a nice one. But it amounts to defining the opposition in a way that's easy to tear apart followed by tearing it apart. It's a cute trick but isn't much of a basis for serious discussion.
Watch: Wilholt's essay consists of exactly and only one indefensible, rhetorical sleight of hand. Consequently, no one can honestly defend it. Attempts to do so are undeserving of serious scrutiny.
After tearing down a strawman, he claims high ground:
> The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
But you'll get a fair bit of support for Wilholt's so-called anti-conservative principle from a fair number of prominent conservative thinkers.
The modern US conservative party really does seem to believe only in that one principle and nothing else. They will pardon actual sex traffickers like Andrew Tate and worse as long as they're on their side. They will defend any action at all by Trump, no matter how vile or illegal or stupid or wrong. It's not a sleight of hand if its true.
Go read a few months worth of the National Review.
Many prominent conservative thinkers are not particularly big fans of Trump. They like portions of his initiatives and policies but not him as a standard bearer, because he does dumb, ill-principled stuff at odds with conservatism.
Peggy Noonan of the WSJ can't write two sentences without letting you know how much she disdains Trump, e.g.
I guess I should clarify it to the modern US conservative party. I know there are a few dissenters even there, but 95% of them vote the way he wants and of course we could have impeached Trump and many cabinet officials long ago if they voted that way. They unquestionably enable this administration. I think its fair to say they represent the conservatives broadly, certainly they are the people the nations conservative citizens elected and continue to support.
I made a similar argument and was downvoted. Yeah, the well-connected pay a fine when caught. This guy's mistake was not knowing he did not belong to that club. He amounted to no more than a fall guy.
There seems to be a pattern that if someone who was not pre-selected by some elites ends up making their own money (I.e. real 'self-made') they are swiftly attacked by the system. On the other hand, look at Nancy Pelosi; she didn't get into any trouble.
Are people allowed to be self-made anymore?
For me personally, after years of planning and hard work, I once managed to secure myself about $40k of passive income from a blockchain in crypto; this lasted a few years but eventually the founders suspiciously abandoned the entire tech stack (for no reason) and switched to Ethereum; this destroyed the opportunity for me; literally lost that stream entirely. Now, recently, I was able to re-establish a passive income stream of about $10k per year from a non-crypto source; this is from an opportunity I took over 10 years ago... I'm worried about that being taken away somehow.
It's interesting they don't think they can get him for leaking classified information. To me that seems like the biggest issue--I mean sure, it's bad he made money on it, but it would have been really bad if he'd gotten someone killed by blabbing to the internet.
It seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.
Imagine doing an easy tour in your air conditioned Kuwaiti logistics office and then getting blown to bits by a ballistic missile because no one bothered to tell you about the war that was being initiated which would cause such missiles in retaliation. Yeah, that's demoralizing too.
Are prediction markets regulated? Is this about breaking the laws regarding prediction markets or is this about leaking classified information? I skimmed but not sure still.
Someone more cynical can say that this is about protecting Thiel’s investment(if people think it’s rigged may stop playing) or making sure that only big G makes money with classified information.
unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.
So what law is broken exactly? Will an engineer with classified information on F-35 use that for fixing his car be also prosecuted? I guess no, so is this about leaking the Maduro operation?
Insider trading and outcome manipulation seems to be the norm on unregulated markets anyway. Whats the crime?
By the letter of the law the guy fixing his car should be prosecuted, but like nobody is going to know and it’s not going to happen. In this case it’s pretty obvious the law was broken.
He screwed himself by taking steps to show how much of an amateur he was, by trying to delete his polymarket account and change the email address on his crypto exchange account
He should have just cashed out and donated 20% of it to Mar-a-Lago saying exactly what he did and a thank you. It's a little too low for a club membership but since the President's family is a shareholder of Polymarket I think it would have been seen as attracting liquidity
AG would have been instructed to stamp out the investigation, no charges would have been filed
So crypto fraud gets deprioritized, with cases like the one against Nader Al-Naji dropped entirely, while Trump and his family profit massively from crypto and corruption themselves.
Yet prediction market fraud is made an enforcement priority, except to say that nobody close to Trump's own cabinet will be prosecuted - the little guys will be made an example of to make it seem like those at the top are taking the moral high-ground. "Every accusation is a confession."
Nice. I'm against polymarket allowing bets on war precisely because of this. But I think we can all agree that perpetrators hold more liability than the platforms, they are the true cuplrits of warcrimes/treason.
What was his rank? What was his job? What was his clearance? How did he have access?
The canadians have the info. He was special forces. He was enlisted (not an officer). He was involved, or at least privy to, the planning of the Venezuela thing.
In desperate times in the age of AI, one needs to grift in order to survive. This soldier was just doing that to maybe...enrich themselves like the politicians also breaking insider trading laws?
This is why no-one at the top institutions, politicians (Pelosi), presidents (Trump) and everyone else in proximity gets arrested or charged for insider trading in all forms. It doesn't apply to them.
This is a reminder that the rule makers are allowed to grift and break their own rules, but will arrest you for copying them or doing the same thing because this soldier was not part of their club.
He wasn't invited to their private insider group chat. So this solider was arrested and charged instead.
Feds waited no time to drop the indictment and make arrest. 3 months is lightning fast for a white collar crime. Wall St. ppl who commit insider trading pay a fine and admit no wrongdoing, discouraging the profits, and only after many years and trades have passed. Goes to show how elites play by a different set of rules. His mistake was not knowing he was not in that club. Have no idea why this was downvoted. I see so many other people who make this argument about privileged elites and always get upvoted.
So had this not involved presumed military secrets, it would have been legal? So it was the classified info that made it a crime, and then the insider trading aspect was later tacked on? It's crazy how the government adds so many charges. This guy is screwed.
That's part of the Chesterton's Fence nature of why these markets are bad. We know insider trading is a bad thing for the stock market, so it's policed. These markets, being a post-regulation internet free for all, aren't.
It's rather obviously illegal to leak classified intel by taking public actions based off of it... that's practically the meaning of the word "classified".
When the history of this administration is written, provided that history itself has not been completely rewritten a la "1984," Goodfellas will be required reading/watching.
And the highly profitable daily mood-induced oil price bets will just be forgotten.
Wilhoit's Law:
Wilhoit's law.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
https://pylimitics.net/wilhoits-law/
Politics aside, he isn't a "little guy". He apparently holds the rank of master sergeant. That's a senior battalion-level role and somewhat political.
This isn't some random E-4 getting dragged.
Yes, there are some hard working NCOs and junior Os out there that make shit happen, but they are not the decision makers and make for great fall guys when shit hits the fan.
Not that it’s defensible behavior.
Pursuing this case doesn’t mean they’re excluding other cases. If you read the article this case was very clear because he made amateur moves and didn’t conceal his identity at all.
This was an easy nab. All leaks should be pursued regardless of who did it.
Yesterday, people could justifiably say that betting on polymarket had essentially no consequences.
Today, we learned there can be consequences.
If in a year’s time this is the only person to ever be charged, that’s a different story.
He also made it all very obvious and traceable for them through the email addresses he used. From the report it doesn’t appear that he made any effort to conceal his identity or hide his tracks until afterward, by which time it was too late.
He wasn't a "little guy" but apparently his only mistake was not being high enough.
I know you’re trying to make a separate point about Congress, but it’s silly to try to turn this into a class warfare thing. Congress didn’t even have this information at the time.
Rule of Law means no one is above the law. In practice this is an aspiration (in the U.S. and everywhere else) but giving up on that isn’t going to make the world better.
I often think about how much we can trust history 20-30 years from now. It is hard to trust history from hundreds of years ago, either because it was written by victors or because there just isn't enough material in the first place. I suppose we have the opposite problem now (and in the future) - too much noise and junk, whole bunch of it generated by AI slop - where does one even start?
False, conspiratorial, dogmatic, juvenile.
The arrest and indictment of someone for betting on Polymarket - which has not yet been tested in court - is going to give huge attention and precedence to the likely illegal activities of some of Polymarket shenanigans coming out of the white house.
Edit: if this was political, it would be pushed in the other direction. This is the NY DOJ doing their jobs.
I don't think this is going to be Hacker News fascinating discourse, but the current USA administration is so openly, brazenly, continuously, gleefully corrupt; continuously fire people with ethics and competence and bring in the in-group of equally corrupt ; and have continuously been rewarded for that behaviour; that I feel the OP is merely observationally factual.
None of this remotely has to do with 'Conservatism', it's certainly not ideological, and it's likely not political either.
This indictment is going to cause a massive headache for White House as they have likely been involved in 'insider trading'.
This is actually regular Justice, finally seeing some movement, to cynically characterize it as otherwise, totally against common sense (aka it's bad for the WH) is just unsound. I think it demonstrates the kind of bubble a lot of people live in, which is maybe understandable in the current climate, where horrible behaviours have gone unpunished. But still. This is the story of a state doj doing their job.
This is a hugely negative thing for the Administration, as District Attorneys, SEC staff, etc. are going to be actively seeking how this could parlay into investigations and indictments of the people in the White House making Polymarket and other speculative bets just before government actions.
There are 100's lawyers reading that right now getting inspired on how they can take action to turn their investigative powers onto whoever those actors are aka family members or associates of those in the White House / Cabinet.
An investigation could be done at the State Level, away from the control of the DoJ, and, if it yields evidence, it wouldn't have to even make it's way through the courts in order to be political destructive.
The suggestion by the OP this has anything to do with ideology or the ruling power throwing one under the bus is ridiculous. Note that the ruling regime isn't above such a thing, but that's not what is happening here because it definitely does not serve their interests - it's the total opposite.
This could turn into a political nightmare that crashes the party.
Edit: if we want to be 'hopefully cynical' - recognize that this could absolutely be the vector that takes the man down, or even many of them. Imagine how many WH, Cabinet Members, family members could get investigated for this and under purvue of state investigators where the investigation can't get shut down.
This isn't joe schlub making side bets here. This is a senior late-career enlisted in an extremely sensitive position violating all of their trust and authority to cash out big.
Watch: Wilholt's essay consists of exactly and only one indefensible, rhetorical sleight of hand. Consequently, no one can honestly defend it. Attempts to do so are undeserving of serious scrutiny.
After tearing down a strawman, he claims high ground:
> The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
But you'll get a fair bit of support for Wilholt's so-called anti-conservative principle from a fair number of prominent conservative thinkers.
Many prominent conservative thinkers are not particularly big fans of Trump. They like portions of his initiatives and policies but not him as a standard bearer, because he does dumb, ill-principled stuff at odds with conservatism.
Peggy Noonan of the WSJ can't write two sentences without letting you know how much she disdains Trump, e.g.
Are people allowed to be self-made anymore?
For me personally, after years of planning and hard work, I once managed to secure myself about $40k of passive income from a blockchain in crypto; this lasted a few years but eventually the founders suspiciously abandoned the entire tech stack (for no reason) and switched to Ethereum; this destroyed the opportunity for me; literally lost that stream entirely. Now, recently, I was able to re-establish a passive income stream of about $10k per year from a non-crypto source; this is from an opportunity I took over 10 years ago... I'm worried about that being taken away somehow.
Count 1 - Unlawful Use of Confidential Government Information for Personal Gain
Count 2 - Theft of Nonpublic Government Information
Count 3 - Commodities Fraud
Count 4 - Wire Fraud
Count 5 - Engaging in a Monetary Transaction in Property Derived from Specified Unlawful Activity
Have any other whatabout-its?
Isn't it better that I don't vote?
Yeah right.
Someone more cynical can say that this is about protecting Thiel’s investment(if people think it’s rigged may stop playing) or making sure that only big G makes money with classified information.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A654vzQTGbQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4njIQcSR4
unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.
Insider trading and outcome manipulation seems to be the norm on unregulated markets anyway. Whats the crime?
ABCnews (5 points, a comment from you) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47882789
justice.gov (1 point, you've duped here) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883034
He should have just cashed out and donated 20% of it to Mar-a-Lago saying exactly what he did and a thank you. It's a little too low for a club membership but since the President's family is a shareholder of Polymarket I think it would have been seen as attracting liquidity
AG would have been instructed to stamp out the investigation, no charges would have been filed
Yet prediction market fraud is made an enforcement priority, except to say that nobody close to Trump's own cabinet will be prosecuted - the little guys will be made an example of to make it seem like those at the top are taking the moral high-ground. "Every accusation is a confession."
I think we all can guess at the truth here.
The canadians have the info. He was special forces. He was enlisted (not an officer). He was involved, or at least privy to, the planning of the Venezuela thing.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11814801/maduro-capture-polymarke...
This is why no-one at the top institutions, politicians (Pelosi), presidents (Trump) and everyone else in proximity gets arrested or charged for insider trading in all forms. It doesn't apply to them.
This is a reminder that the rule makers are allowed to grift and break their own rules, but will arrest you for copying them or doing the same thing because this soldier was not part of their club.
He wasn't invited to their private insider group chat. So this solider was arrested and charged instead.
Epstein said the same, and yet nobody went out to protest.
* Unlawful Use of Confidential Government Information for Personal Gain
* Theft of Nonpublic Government Information
* Commodities Fraud
* Wire Fraud
* Engaging in a Monetary Transaction in Property Derived from Specified Unlawful Activity
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/media/1437781/dl
If you're the Trump hand-picked Secretary of the War Department then it is not illegal and will never be punished.
Always remember which tier of justice you are on prior to committing a crime!