Politics
Our political journalists are based in the Maine State House and have deep source networks across the partisan spectrum in communities all over the state. Their coverage aims to cut through major debates and probe how officials make decisions. Read more Politics coverage here.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson on Tuesday accused Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of “corruption of the highest order” after a ProPublica report put the spotlight on an alleged pay-to-play scheme among a defense contractor, lobbyists and lawmakers, including Maine’s five-term incumbent.
The report resurfaced an illegal $150,000 donation to a Collins’ super PAC during the 2020 cycle that campaign finance watchdogs flagged and the FBI investigated, leading Navatek CEO Martin Kao to plead guilty to unlawful campaign contributions.
ProPublica reported that Kao, as he faced years in prison, including on COVID relief fraud charges, told the FBI that he’d arranged deals through several lobbyists and members of Congress who helped his firm secure contracts after he, his family or a shell company made donations.
The story comes less than two months before one of the most pivotal and expensive Senate elections in the country. Multiple previous candidates — including former Democratic nominee Graham Platner — had tried to make corruption claims stick against the senator with little effect.
The FBI’s probe into potential bribery of lawmakers did not continue because, in 2025, President Donald Trump’s second administration effectively eviscerated the anti-corruption teams on the case, ProPublica reports.
“This is corruption of the highest order,” Jackson said in a statement. “Susan Collins delivered millions in taxpayer dollars for a corrupt donor bankrolling her campaign, and then [President] Donald Trump helped her cover it up.”
Jackson, who has hammered Collins for voting overwhelmingly with Trump, said Mainers “deserve answers about every contract and every conversation that Collins and her team facilitated on the backs of taxpayers.”
Collins’ team has denied any wrongdoing and called Kao’s claims of a widescale bribery scheme “outlandish.” Annie Clark, the senator’s deputy chief of staff, told ProPublica the campaign was not part of discussions between Kao and the super PAC. Collins’ office fully cooperated with the investigation, and the “fact that the FBI and Biden-led Department of Justice thoroughly examined the Navatek matter demonstrates this,” she said.
In a statement Tuesday morning, Clark went further, calling the “seven-year-old allegations” in the story against Collins and her staff “categorically false” and sharply criticizing Kao and ProPublica’s reporting. Kao’s claim the senator’s office required donations before meeting was false, Clark said, as were claims Collins engaged in “extortion, pay for play, and bribery.” She said the FBI had not contacted Collins’ team about Kao since 2021.
“ProPublica took the word of someone who [pleaded] guilty to five counts of money laundering, three counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud and making false submissions to the [Federal Elections Commission],” she said.