Pay-to-Play Scandal Grows As Second Report Calls Out Collins’ “Inaccurate” & “Misleading” Claims

MAINE, USA — The questions surrounding U.S. Senator Susan Collins and an alleged pay-to-play scheme continued to grow Thursday after ProPublica published a second report finding that several claims Collins and her representatives made in response to its original investigation were “incorrect,” “misleading” or “not accurate.”

The follow-up comes after Collins and her campaign repeatedly denied wrongdoing and argued that the allegations had already been investigated and resolved years ago. But ProPublica reported that Collins remained interested in the conduct of Collins and her staff until the Trump administration dismantled the anti-corruption teams working on the case.

And Bangor Daily News and the New York Times highlighted that the corruption didn’t stop there — as additional scrutiny is falling on longtime Republican operative Scott Reed, a central figure in ProPublica’s original investigation and a major player in Collins’ current reelection effort.

“Mainers deserve answers about what happened, what investigators found, and why the FBI inquiry ended when it did,” said Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb. “Every new report raises more questions about Collins’ account of the investigation and the people around her. She should answer them directly.”

ProPublica: Susan Collins Dismissed Our Reporting as Old News. Some of Her Claims Aren’t True

After the story published, Collins and her campaign denied any wrongdoing in numerous media appearances. Some of the statements made by Collins and her representatives are not accurate.
An FBI spokesperson told ProPublica the agency had investigated claims against Collins years ago “and ultimately found nothing implicating Senator Collins or Senator Collins’ campaign.” But the investigation at the center of ProPublica’s story was based on claims Kao made between 2022 through 2024 — not seven years ago, as Collins states. That investigation did not conclude under President Joe Biden but under Trump, in 2025, after his administration purged the agents and Department of Justice attorneys assigned to the case.
FBI records reviewed by ProPublica show the agency remained interested in the conduct of Collins and her staff right up until the most recent phase of their investigation was shut down under Trump.
The judge in Kao’s sentencing ultimately offered him no benefit for his cooperation with federal authorities, sentencing him to 87 months in federal prison.
ProPublica did not simply take Kao at his word but reviewed a trove of evidence gathered by the FBI. It also examined thousands of pages of legal records and interviewed dozens of people familiar with Navatek, its Washington operations and the FBI inquiry to independently corroborate much of Kao’s account.

Bangor Daily News: Operative at center of ProPublica report is still a top outside money man for Susan Collins

Scott Reed, the longtime Republican strategist at the center of ProPublica’s report alleging U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and other lawmakers may have been involved in a pay-to-play scheme, remains a major force in the five-term incumbent’s inner circle.
Reed now helms Pine Tree Results PAC, which has booked more than $28 million in ads in Collins’ reelection bid against Democrat Troy Jackson, according to AdImpact data. Her campaign and the Reed-led group raise money together through a joint committee.
Reed’s lobbying firm, Chesapeake Enterprises, paid the senator’s husband, Tom Daffron, as a consultant last year.
ProPublica reported the FBI was still digging into Navatek’s donations, along with potential bribery involving Collins and other lawmakers, by late 2024 before the second Trump administration dismantled the agency’s anti-corruption teams.
Pine Tree Results PAC, the new Reed-led group, relies on many of the same billionaires who funded the 1820 PAC of the 2020 cycle, led by Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, who has given the new group $3 million. In all, 21 donors have given to both super PACs.
The new group also leans heavily on organizations whose own funders aren’t disclosed, including $3 million from the group Stronger America, which is running its own pro-Collins ads, and $1.25 million from the Lexington Fund, part of a network linked to conservative legal activist Leonard Leo.
Reed was a central figure in separate complaints from Campaign Legal Center and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington a decade ago. In those complaints, a Reed-linked group was accused of flouting campaign finance laws. His lobbying firm, Chesapeake Enterprises, faced allegations of failing to file required lobbying reports.
Brendan Fischer, who heads Campaign Legal Center’s strategic investigations team, said Reed had been “involved in super PACs and dark money groups pushing the legal envelope.” He also said Kao’s brazenness, including telling Reed in an email that he was using an LLC to make a six-figure donation, offered a rare “peek behind the curtain.”
The FEC’s general counsel in 2024 recommended a finding that Reed’s PAC violated regulations by failing to refund the $150,000 donation from an LLC established by Kao “once it discovered the illegality of the contribution,” according to a report in the case file. But the FEC, which found Kao’s donation violated campaign finance laws, took no action.

New York Times: Weeks Before the Election, Collins’s Ties to a Fund-Raiser Are Under Scrutiny

Long before Donald J. Trump upended the Republican Party, Scott Reed was one of its go-to political operatives.
One of his closest relationships was with Senator Susan Collins of Maine, and her husband, Tom Daffron, a former Capitol Hill staffer and lobbyist. Mr. Daffron previously worked at Mr. Reed’s government relations firm, and last year it paid him for consulting, according to the senator’s financial disclosure.
The longstanding ties between Mr. Reed and the senator and her husband are now under intense scrutiny following a report by ProPublica that said the F.B.I. had sought to begin a pay-to-play investigation examining Ms. Collins’s interactions with a donor seeking federal contracts. Mr. Reed, who headed a pro-Collins super PAC, exchanged emails with the donor, Martin Kao, according to ProPublica.
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Ms. Collins described Mr. Reed as “a person of great integrity.”
Mr. Reed, 66, said he never communicated with Ms. Collins, her staff or Mr. Daffron about Mr. Kao or his company. On Wednesday, he also told The Times that he would continue to raise money for a recently launched super PAC supporting Ms. Collins, Pine Tree Results. The group has spent or reserved $28 million on advertising this campaign cycle, according to AdImpact.
In 2020, Mr. Reed abruptly left the Chamber [of Commerce], citing its endorsements of several Democrats and claiming the organization was insufficiently defending the Republican majority in the Senate. A spokeswoman for the group at the time said Mr. Reed had been pushed out “for cause” and accused him of breaching the organization’s confidentiality rules. That same year, Mr. Reed leveraged his wide political network to bankroll a super PAC boosting Ms. Collins’s re-election campaign.
Two years later, Mr. Kao was indicted on charges of making illegal campaign contributions, and he began to detail a sweeping cash-for-contracts operation on Capitol Hill that involved Ms. Collins and Mr. Reed, according to the ProPublica report.
Mr. Reed’s firm, Chesapeake Enterprises, paid Mr. Daffron more than $1,000 last year, according to the senator’s financial disclosure form.
Mr. Reed’s Pine Tree Results super PAC has raised $20.6 million as of the end of June, records show, largely from out-of-state megadonors.