NEW REPORT: “The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way”

PORTLAND, ME – Today, a new bombshell investigation from Propublica revealed that Susan Collins was being examined by the FBI for steering federal contracts to a major donor — until Donald Trump ended the investigation.

In response, Troy Jackson issued the following statement:

“This is corruption of the highest order. Susan Collins delivered millions in taxpayer dollars for a corrupt donor bankrolling her campaign, and then Donald Trump helped her cover it up. No wonder she voted with him 96% of the time and has rubberstamped his agenda to hurt Maine. Susan Collins doesn’t care that we’re losing our health care, that ICE is killing people on the streets, and that we’ve been dragged into a pointless war — as long as her donors get their contracts and her coffers get filled. We deserve answers about every contract and every conversation that Collins and her team facilitated on the backs of taxpayers. The jig is up.”

Propublica: The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way

Report Highlights:

Probe: In 2024, the FBI sought to launch a sweeping pay-to-play investigation examining interactions between Sen. Susan Collins and a top donor, records and emails show.

Confession: The donor, an ex-defense contractor, told agents his company won millions in federal contracts by bankrolling campaigns of powerful politicians.

Shutdown: After Donald Trump returned to office, the investigation died, a casualty of his purge of the FBI. Its closure shut a potential window into how Washington works.

Government contractors are banned from making political contributions. More consequentially, for the company to offer donations to Collins in exchange for an official action, or for Collins to accept, would constitute criminal bribery.
But the company did have such a proposal: Navatek was hungry for more government contracts in Maine. If they cut a big check, the CEO told Reed, Navatek wanted Collins to guarantee tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding.
To skirt campaign finance laws and conceal the source of the funds, Navatek planned to funnel the donation through a shell company. The CEO wanted assurance that Collins would know where the money came from. Reed confirmed that she would, the executive said — and that Navatek would get its government contracts.
After the Corner Bakery meeting, Navatek’s CEO, Martin Kao, sent an initial $150,000 to the Collins super PAC using the shell company. Two months later, he told Navatek executives that Collins committed to getting the company $32 million in naval contracts, according to an internal company email reviewed by ProPublica.
Three years later, Kao holed up in a conference room to recount the Corner Bakery meeting to a group of four FBI agents and federal prosecutors. The FBI had seen through his shell company ruse, and in 2022 a grand jury indicted him for making illegal campaign contributions. No one working for Collins was charged.
Facing years in prison, Kao hoped to do less time by revealing the entire scheme. What he told them has never before become public.
[...] Of all the politicians Navatek courted under Kao’s leadership, Collins was its most important patron. 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.
[...] In a meeting with Collins and two campaign officials, Kao said, the officials told him the senator expected his ongoing support. Collins told him: “You’ve seen me deliver,” Kao said.
[...] Seven days after the super PAC cashed the check from Kao’s shell company, one of Reed’s subordinates emailed a Navatek lobbyist asking for Kao’s phone number: “Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him.”
[...] Kao told the FBI that the lawmakers, lobbyists and Navatek brass understood these donations were bribes and that the payments were essential to the entire scheme.
[...] “It was a simple enough play. Let’s find the small states that have complementary universities … [and] let’s get access to their senators,” Eric Schiff, a former Navatek executive, told ProPublica. “I’ve met Susan Collins. You can get access to Susan Collins. Once we got the first things working with Maine, then we said, ‘Well, let’s keep reaching.’ And so we did.”
[...] Navatek’s public flameout attracted the attention of Michelle Ball and Kevin Gounaud, two experienced agents in the FBI’s elite anti-corruption unit. [...] The agents began digging through thousands of records for details of Navatek’s lobbying operation, donation strategy and ties to politicians. [...] Before they could embark on their new mission, however, they became casualties of Trump’s retribution campaign.

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