WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: Voters “Reconsider” Support for Susan Collins Following Involvement in “Vile, Outright Bribery Pay-for-Play” Corruption Scheme

Former Obama White House Ethics Czar Norm Eisen: “This has to be investigated. These are very serious allegations of corruption”

MS NOW’s Jen Psaki: “This story reads like the worst things that happen in Washington that people outside of Washington hate […] several people who were implicated still remain inside Susan Collins inner circle”

The Midcoast Villager’s Alex Seitz-Wald: “This is the first time […] I’ve ever seen a single story dominate basically every major news outlet in Maine like this […] So readers up and down the coast and the interior are seeing this story”

MS NOW’s Chris Hayes: “The reporting really shows how Collins is an absolute creature of what most everyone now views as the corrupt establishment, which is the exact opposite of the person who is now running against her as a Democratic nominee”

As Susan Collins faces “arguably the toughest re-election campaign of her three-decade career,” a “bombshell” report from ProPublica lays out “in detail” how she was a “willing participant” and the “most important patron” at the center of a “vile, outright bribery pay-for-play” corruption scheme.

Legal experts are sounding the alarm about these “very serious allegations of corruption” and demanding answers about why the FBI’s inquiry was closed under the Trump administration, as “several people who were implicated still remain inside Susan Collins inner circle” and the story “dominate[s] basically every major news outlet in Maine.”

Now, election analysts argue that Collins’ “shocking” display of “corruption of the highest order” “‘could sting’ Collins’ re-election chances” and is giving the Democratic and Independent voters she needs “pause” as they begin “reconsider[ing] the support that they may have had for [her].”

See for yourself:

MS NOW: ProPublica: FBI Sought Bribery Probe of Susan Collins 

• MS NOW’s CHRIS HAYES: Today, a bombshell news story on Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine. ProPublica reporting that the FBI sought to launch essentially a bribery investigation involving Collins, among others, in 2024, but dropped it when Trump returned to office. 
• According to emails seen by ProPublica, the Senator’s office steered government contracts worth millions towards a defense contractor while her campaign was pumping the company CEO and his network for donations. Donations like this check for $150,000 to Collins’ super PAC, which ProPublica reports came from a shell company to obscure that the actual donor was the defense contractor, a company called Navatek, which had just been awarded a new contract.
• Whether what occurred here was criminal or not, the reporting really shows how Collins is an absolute creature of what most everyone now views as the corrupt establishment, which is the exact opposite of the person who is now running against her as a Democratic nominee. 
• New York Magazine’s REBECCA TRAISTER: Yeah, it’s a huge story. It is extraordinary reporting […] I’m also so grateful as a Maine voter to have this really remarkable piece outlining really vile, outright bribery pay-for-play. You know, the idea that money can buy defense contracts. It’s the absolute opposite of how Collins likes to present herself to voters. And it is also, as you say, the opposite of the candidate she’s running against and who’s going to be on the ballot against her in November […]
• HAYES: Here’s what Troy Jackson […] had to say. He says “This corruption of the highest order. She delivered millions in taxpayer dollars for corrupt donor bankrolling her campaign. No wonder she voted with him 96% of the time. Has rubber-stamped his agenda to hurt Maine” and sort of goes on and talks about her votes on health care.
• TRAISTER: I think people are sick of what they view as this top-down corruption and top-down control. Collins advertises herself as an independent. That’s obviously been far from true for years at this point, which I think is widely known. But it’s also what the appeal of Jackson has long been in this state as a state legislator now for over 20 years and President of the state Senate. He has always very much identified himself as the inverse of that top-down politics. He is the guy who, he says, is fighting for people on the bottom. And his record really demonstrates that that’s true. He’s always been very involved with labor. He fought for free lunches for Maine schoolchildren, for policy, for affordable child care. He is a guy who has fought against the leaders of both parties. 

CNN: ProPublica: The FBI Was Circling Sen. Susan Collins’ Team… Until Trump Got In The Way

• ProPublica’s WILLIAM TURTON: The agents were at the beginning of their probe, looking into the interactions between Collins and her involvement with the Hawaiian defense contractor, a man named Martin Kao. The Collins campaign says that “we relied on Kao’s word.” That’s not accurate. We conducted our own investigation, and the FBI too investigated some of Kao’s claims, and they took them seriously. Kao gave a lengthy confession to two FBI agents in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Honolulu in both 2022 and 2024, where he detailed his interactions with members of the Collins campaign, as well as the super PAC supporting her and what he alleged was a scheme in order to exchange contributions for contracts.

MS NOW: Reports: FBI Probed Sen. Collins Campaign For Corruption

• MS NOW’s JEN PSAKI: Okay, here’s how the Bangor Daily News is covering this story I just talked through on their website – the top headline reads “How a bombshell report on Susan Collins washed over Maine politics. Then there’s the Portland Press Herald – “What to know about the pay-to-play allegations against Susan Collins.” It’s the top story on Maine Public Radio’s website, and small-town newspaper The Midcoast Villager ran the full story. And Mainers who tuned in to their local evening news also got a taste of ProPublica’s bombshell report. 
• NEWS CENTER MAINE [CLIP]: The campaign and office of Senator Susan Collins today answering questions prompted by an investigative story by the news organization ProPublica. 
• WABI [CLIP]: The FBI previously looked into allegations of a pay-to-play scheme involving a defense contractor. ProPublica identified Collins as the most significant lawmaker named in the alleged arrangement. 
• WMTW [CLIP]: Her opponent this November, Troy Jackson, calling this corruption of the highest order. 
• PSAKI: I think it’s fair to say the people of Maine might have a lot of questions about all of that […] What can you tell people about how it’s breaking through or how it’s being digested in Maine right now? 
• The Midcoast Villager’s ALEX SEITZ-WALD: Yeah, I mean, 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 […] So readers up and down the coast and the interior are seeing this story as they’re checking the news about their local town councils and everything. 
• In a Democratic state like Maine, she needs Democrats; she needs Independents. And I think this might give a lot of them pause, or at least a moment to reconsider the support that they may have had for Susan Collins for a long time. 
• PASKI: Yeah, it’s such an interesting point about the Washington aspect of this because this story reads like the worst things that happen in Washington that people outside of Washington hate. Right? 
• One interesting thing that stood out to me in the ProPublica, there was a lot in there, I tried to do my best to go through. It was the fact that several people who were implicated still remain inside Susan Collins inner circle. 

MS NOW: ProPublica: Sen. Collins FBI Inquiry Stalled Under Trump

• Former Obama White House Ethics Czar NORM EISEN: Well, this is shocking […] ProPublica reports that Collins told the company, “You’ve seen me deliver,” and then a six-figure sum, according to ProPublica, also moved to the Collins super PAC. I just think this has to be investigated. These are very serious allegations of corruption. 

NYT: F.B.I. Shut Down Inquiry Into Top Ally of Senator Susan Collins

• The F.B.I. in 2025 shut down an inquiry into allegations that a political adviser to Senator Susan Collins had participated in a scheme to funnel illegal campaign contributions from a defense contractor seeking lucrative federal contracts, current and former officials said.
• The bureau began investigating the matter […] after Martin Kao, the chief executive of Navatek, a military contractor in Hawaii, said he had discussed circumventing campaign finance laws with a political adviser to Ms. Collins, Republican of Maine. Mr. Kao is now serving an 87-month prison sentence for wire fraud, money laundering and bank fraud, some of which related to a separate scheme to defraud the government of pandemic aid money.
• The inquiry was closed under the Trump administration last year […]
• The disclosure of the inquiry and its closing came in the final weeks of a midterm election in which Ms. Collins is in a tight race that could help decide control of the Senate. It prompted accusations that the F.B.I.’s decision to shut down the investigation last year was influenced by political considerations — safeguarding a critical seat that could decide which party controls the Senate.
• In President Trump’s second term, the Justice Department has scuttled the main unit responsible for investigating public corruption, while dropping investigations against Republicans and Trump allies, including Eric Adams, the former mayor of New York.
• Ms. Collins, 73, faces what is arguably the toughest re-election campaign of her three-decade career as a Republican representing a blue state.
• Her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, the former speaker of Maine’s State Senate, seized on the disclosure of the F.B.I. investigation to accuse Ms. Collins of corruption and to cast Mr. Trump as her political wingman.
• “Susan Collins delivered millions in taxpayer dollars for a corrupt donor bankrolling her campaign, and then Donald Trump helped her cover it up,” he said in a fund-raising email sent on Tuesday.

MS NOW, MaddowBlog: FBI’s anti-corruption team eyed Susan Collins’ operation. Then Trump’s purge began

• As a rule, accusing Collins of being involved in corruption hasn’t been part of the Democratic script. It’s likely that will soon change.
• ProPublica published a rather devastating new report on the Maine Republican’s political operation, which was worried about a possible defeat in 2020. To avoid that, Scott Reed, who led a Collins-aligned super PAC, launched an aggressive fundraising initiative. From the article:
• Reed was meeting that day with three executives from a Hawaiian defense contractor, Navatek. A year earlier, Collins had helped their company land a multimillion-dollar Navy research contract in Maine. Now, seated at a coffee shop not far from the U.S. Capitol, Reed asked them for a $500,000 donation.
• 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.
• […] with just six weeks remaining in the midterm election cycle and polls showing Collins trailing in a tough re-election race, it’s a safe bet that voters in Maine will be hearing a lot more about this very soon.
• “This is corruption of the highest order,” Troy Jackson, the senator’s Democratic rival, said in a statement on Tuesday morning. “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.”
• Jackson’s statement concluded, “We deserve answers about every contract and every conversation that Collins and her team facilitated on the backs of taxpayers. The jig is up.”

Rolling Stone: Susan Collins Was Target of Federal Bribery Case … Until Trump Gutted the FBI

• The FBI was quietly investigating a bipartisan group of over a dozen lawmakers — including Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — in connection with a sprawling pay-for-contracts bribery scheme. Then the Trump administration gutted the FBI’s public corruption unit.
• According to a Tuesday report from ProPublica, the probe stemmed from a tell-all cooperation agreement between Martin Kao — the former CEO of the military contractor Navatek — and federal agents. Kao was indicted in 2022 on charges of making illegal campaign contributions, and according to ProPublica, informed the FBI of a nearly $1 million quid-pro-quo scheme […]
• According to emails obtained by ProPublica, Collins — who is embroiled in a critical campaign battle to keep her seat in the Senate — reportedly directed millions in federal contracts to Navatek, often through the invocation of her influential role on the Senate Appropriations Committee. According to Kao’s statements to federal agents, in 2019 Collins’ super PAC approached Navatek with a request for $500,000 dollars towards her reelection, citing her past help in securing them a Maine-based contract with the U.S. Navy during her last term. The ask was implicitly illegal, as government contractors are explicitly barred from making political donations. Kao reportedly told the head of the PAC that they would be interested … if the senator could help them secure additional contracts. 
• Troves of emails obtained by ProPublica contain direct references to Collins’ alleged role in pushing Navatek to the Navy at the expense of a competitive bidding process. “I spoke with Sen. Collins office regarding the $8M,” one email from a Naval official, dated to 2019, said. “The interested company is Navatek.” 
• Kao also told investigators that when he met face-to-face with Collins and two members of her campaign staff, the senator told him directly that he’d already seen her “deliver” for him and expected continued support. 
• Shortly after, Navatek began funneling money towards Collins’ PAC through a network of shell companies. 
• Around the 2024 election, with Kao in hand and a trove of evidence to go off of, the FBI was in the throes of a major investigation into the extent of the influence peddling surrounding Navatek, and the potential for similar schemes. However, upon Trump’s election, federal law enforcement agencies including the FBI and Justice Department were put under the control of Trump’s allies and sycophants, and the Public Corruption unit within the bureau was gutted. 

Newsweek: Susan Collins blasted by Troy Jackson over FBI probe report—”Corruption”

• Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, was hit with criticism from her Democratic challenger Troy Jackson after ProPublica published a report about her alleged interactions with a major campaign donor, as polls show a tight race in Maine six weeks out from the 2026 midterms.
• The FBI sought to launch a probe into Collins’ dealings with a major donor, according to a ProPublica report, and the effort was abandoned after President Donald Trump’s return to office, according to an investigation by the outlet.
• The report comes amid a tight Maine Senate race, one of the most competitive and closely watched contests in the 2026 midterms.
• Jackson responded to the report in a statement provided to Newsweek, accusing Collins of “corruption of the highest order.”
• “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,” he wrote. “The jig is up.”
• One Maine politics expert told Newsweek the report “could sting” Collins’ reelection chances.
• Democrats have been hopeful about finally unseating Collins this year. The national environment appears favorable for a blue wave due to President Donald Trump’s falling national approval rating and economic concerns tied to inflation and the cost of living.

See also: ProPublica: The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way; DSCC: BREAKING: “The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way” [ProPublica]