NEW: Lockheed Gave Collins Thousands; She Delivered Funding For Their Scandal-Ridden Program

MAINE, USA — New reporting featured in The Intercept and Portland Press Herald details that in the two months following a critical federal watchdog report on the F-35, Lockheed Martin employees and executives, including its CEO and COO, gave Maine Senator Susan Collins $59,500. She was the company’s top recipient, and weeks later she voted to fund 83 more F-35s – despite the jets being behind schedule and well over budget.

The report follows a familiar pattern for Collins: corporations and corporate PACs pour money into her campaign and linked committees, and then she steers government funding their way. ProPublica previously reported on an FBI investigation into an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving defense contractors tied to Collins, and more than 250 Mainers have asked the attorney general to investigate.

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The Intercept: Lockheed Martin Showered Susan Collins with Cash as F-35 Program Hit Turbulence

Lockheed and its lobbyists went on a charm offensive in Washington. The weapons maker shelled out hundreds of thousands over a two-month period, in what the money-in-politics watchdog Open Secrets described as “one of the largest coordinated lobbying efforts” around that year’s military budget.
No member of Congress benefited more than Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who at the time served as the ranking member on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
From May 1 to June 30, 2023, employees and top executives from Lockheed Martin donated $59,500 to Collins’s campaign committee.
The donations were outliers during that period: Collins was among the largest recipients of Lockheed cash; the company was her largest single donor over those two months; and it was the largest spending blitz on Collins by Lockheed compared to the same period in other years.
The effort appeared to pay off for Lockheed. In July 2023, less than two months after the release of the Government Accountability Office report, Collins voted in favor of appropriating funds to purchase 83 new F-35 jets. Later that year, when the final version of the military budget was signed into law, Collins celebrated the economic boon she said it would bring to the state of Maine.
Last month, a bombshell report in ProPublica detailed an FBI investigation into an alleged pay-to-play scheme. A former defense contractor claimed to federal agents that he worked with figures tied to Collins to disguise campaign donations — and got federal contracts totaling $32 million in return.

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