As the scandal over Susan Collins’ relationship with Hawaii defense contractor Navatek became the central issue in her hotly contested senate campaign, she and her top aides mustered a defense with a series of incorrect and misleading claims.
On Tuesday, ProPublica published an investigation into the senior senator from Maine’s relationship with Martin Kao, the former Navatek CEO and a major donor who told law enforcement he exchanged campaign cash for government contracts. His confession came after his guilty plea for campaign finance and loan fraud.
The ProPublica story revealed that the FBI had been circling the senator, her top aides and a pro-Collins super PAC in recent years, asking questions about their relationship with Navatek. Since returning to office, President Donald Trump fired or pushed out most of the federal agents and lawyers investigating high-profile federal corruption matters, including those working on the Kao case. The dismissals ended the corruption review, which was in its early stages.
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.
Collins: “In 2021, the Biden Justice Department found there was no wrongdoing by anyone on my campaign staff, my office or me.”
Collins: “The Biden-led Justice Department and FBI totally cleared my office, my campaign and me five years ago of these seven-year-old allegations.”
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.
Collins is referring to the FBI’s initial investigation of Kao, which started in 2021. No one in Collins’ orbit was charged as a result of that earlier investigation.
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 documents show that Kao was still answering agents’ questions as late as September 2024, when he sat for a two-day interview with FBI agents at the U.S. attorney’s office in Honolulu. During that interview, Kao provided them with a 50-page document offering many new allegations about his interactions with elected officials, including Collins.
And in early 2025, FBI agents were still examining Kao’s relationship with Collins, her staffers and employees of the super PAC, ProPublica found.
Annie Clark, deputy chief of staff to Collins: “The FBI and the Court obviously did not believe Kao.”
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. While Kao had credibility issues — as a convicted felon — FBI documents seen by ProPublica show that agents were able to corroborate some of his claims.
“Pursuant to a Grand Jury Subpoena issued to Navatek, related to the previous investigation, hundreds of thousands of documents were provided to the FBI,” agents wrote in a December 2024 document.
“Several emails and other documents corroborate Kao’s statements made to the FBI.”
In addition, people familiar with the investigation told ProPublica that FBI agents found Kao to be credible.
Clark: “ProPublica took the word of someone who pled guilty to five counts of money laundering, three counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, and making false submissions to the FEC.”
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.
For instance, Kao said that Scott Reed, the head of the Collins super PAC, promised to make the senator aware that Kao was the person behind a large, anonymous donation to the super PAC made through a shell company.
We published emails between Reed and Kao showing that Kao told Reed the name of the shell company he was using to anonymize his $150,000 donation. And we included an email from someone working for Reed to a Navatek representative asking for Kao’s number so Collins could thank him for the donation. These are consistent with Kao’s version of events.
Steve Abbott, Collins’ campaign manager, said at a Wednesday press conference, “We have no record of her calling him.” But he added that such a phone call would not be unusual: “We routinely thank people for contributions. … We try to thank everybody.”
Reed did not answer detailed questions about the $150,000 donation but said he didn’t speak to Collins about Kao. He added, “I understand Martin Kao is now sitting in federal prison.”
