PRESS RELEASE
Mainers Respond To Collins’ Pay-to-Play Scandal Grows, Demand Further Investigations
MAINE, USA — In the wake of an investigation by ProPublica exposing Susan Collins at the center of a pay-to-play scheme and a second report finding that several claims Collins and her representatives made in response to its original investigation were “incorrect,” “misleading” or “not accurate,” Mainers are speaking out, expressing their outraged with the corruption allegations that have engulfed Collins and her cronies.
See the latest Op-Eds and Letters to the Editor Below:
Portland Press Herald: Opinion: Susan Collins’ fundraising tactics sure look crooked to me
The project, funded by a budget provision pushed by Collins, may have helped UMaine and Navatek — but didn’t mean anything to our Navy, the ostensible beneficiary.
A cheap lunch led to millions of taxpayer dollars for a shady contractor that ultimately had little to offer the Navy. Collins raked in hundreds of thousands to promote her campaign.
We’ve known for years that Navatek ran a crooked operation — its former CEO is in federal prison — and that it had ties to Collins. What ProPublica added to the tale are stunning details that paint Collins and her staff as in on the action and the confirmation the FBI had launched an investigation into her connections to Navatek — an investigation that died when President Trump took office and he fired nearly everyone who had a hand in it.
Suddenly, though, we have a plausible explanation for the reluctance of Maine’s senior senator to stand up to Trump’s tyrannical moves: The president protected her reputation by eliminating personnel behind the FBI probe. At most, he may have shielded Collins from facing federal criminal charges.
Everybody, and that includes Sen. Collins, should agree that further investigation is needed now.
Portland Press Herald: Letter: Susan Collins brings home the bacon. For whom?
Sen. Susan Collins campaigns on her Appropriations Committee clout and the money she brings home to Maine. It’s good for Mainers to know who bought that clout.
According to Sept. 22 reporting by ProPublica, in 2019, Martin Kao, the CEO of government contractor Navatek, met with the head of Collins’ super PAC, who was soliciting a big donation. Kao reportedly later told the FBI that Navatek offered such a donation in exchange for Collins supporting tens of millions more in federal funding.
If that’s Collins “bringing home the bacon,” Mainers deserve to know before the midterms whether the conduct ProPublica reports would constitute criminal bribery and further, whether the use of her clout was for the benefit of Mainers and the American people, or for the benefit of her reelection campaign.
Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson: September 23rd
ProPublica published a blockbuster story reporting that the anti-corruption group of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) for engaging in a pay-to-play scheme in which defense contractor Navatek made illegal donations to her 2020 campaign and later got multimillion-dollar contracts from the government. Collins is the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
And yet, the story continues, when he returned to the White House in 2025, Trump fired the investigators building the case and largely stopped investigating public corruption.
Collins’s deputy chief of staff Annie Clark said Collins’s office “vigorously” denies allegations of bribery and pay-to-play, but she did admit that “the Collins campaign disgorged the illegal contributions that Martin Kao had made without our knowledge.” Emails suggest that, in fact, her office did know about the deal. After a $150,000 donation, a staff member from her office emailed a lobbyist for Navatek to ask for Kao’s phone number, writing: “Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him.”
The bribery angle of this story is huge. So, too, is that the story suggests that Trump, at least, might perceive that he has something to hold over Collins’s head to keep her behind his actions, even when they have dramatically weakened her power at the head of Appropriations.
Alex Seitz-Wald: This is the first time in my about a year and a half with the Midcoast Villager that I've ever seen a single story dominate basically every major news outlet in Maine like this.
Alex Seitz-Wald: Readers up and down the coast and the interior are seeing this story as they're checking their news about their local town councils and everything. And beyond the integrity issues and the corruption allegations that are obvious, this gets at the core of who Susan Collins is in her own story, which is an appropriator. [...] But it makes you wonder maybe about the flip side of that, which is she's been in Washington for almost 30 years. Who has she been working for?
Jen Psaki: One interesting thing that stood out to me in the ProPublica, [...] was the fact that several people who were implicated still remain inside Susan Collins's inner circle. I know they're denying the story, but that's- I've been on a lot of campaigns. It kind of surprised me.
Alex Seitz-Wald: From my reporting with the people that I've spoken to with the Collins campaign, they think they didn't do anything wrong, so they don't think there would be any reason for these people to be pushed out.
According to a new investigation from ProPublica, Sen. Susan Collins narrowly escaped being embroiled in an FBI bribery probe into defense contracts, lawmakers and large campaign contributions. For that, she can thank the Trump administration’s commitment to making America a place where the wealthy, connected and morally flexible can get away with almost anything. The good news is that if we’re determined enough, we can undo the damage that has been done.
Collins’ fundraiser made a request: The company should make a six-figure donation to help the senator in her re-election bid. The executives said they would pony up — if Collins helped them get more contracts.
As chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Collins has enormous power over where government funds are spent. According to ProPublica, “The senator’s office steered government contracts worth millions toward the company while her campaign was pumping Kao and his network for donations, according to emails seen by ProPublica. Sometimes they cut checks within 24 hours of the annual defense spending bill, which funds military contracts, clearing a key Senate hurdle.”
The investigation into Kao’s claims never went ahead. It was part of a wider purge at the DOJ, in which attorneys, prosecutors and FBI agents who had ever investigated Trump, the Jan. 6 insurrection, Russia’s interference in the 2020 election or other matters Trump would prefer not to have a light shined on them could expect to be pushed out or fired.
Kao went to jail for multiple crimes, but the investigation into the broader system his allegations prompted was one of the casualties of the Trump administration’s new permissiveness toward corruption and white-collar crime.
There will always be corrupt officials who seek to use public office for their own gain. But they will only do what they think they can get away with. Yes, we should bolster our degraded norms against the kind of personal profiteering Trump has engaged in. But even more important is to create a system that makes unethical behavior not just as shameful, but as illegal. And one in which people know that when they break the law, they’ll be punished.
###