Susan Collins calls corruption allegations 'completely false' after FBI review revealed
US senator Susan Collins of Maine has dismissed Susan Collins corruption allegations that she traded federal contracts for campaign cash as 'completely false', responding to an ethics complaint filed the previous week by a Maine attorney.
Susan Collins calls corruption allegations 'completely false' after FBI review revealed
Collins's rebuttal
The Republican, campaigning to retain her Maine seat ahead of November's US midterm elections, said the claims were recycled from 2020 and had been rejected by the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Federal Election Commission.
The allegations are completely false.
According to Collins, the grant request came from the University of Maine rather than Navatek, and until now the company's name meant nothing to her. She called Navatek's one-time chief executive Martin Kao "a crook" whom neither she nor the university had known about. In her view, Kao revived the story because he wanted either the judge or the prosecutor to go easy on him.
- Collins also noted a photo placing Kao in her office alongside other staff members months before any donation from him.
- She said she was never even interviewed because there was no evidence for the case.
What Kao told the FBI
Kao is currently serving an 87-month prison term for fraud and campaign finance crimes. ProPublica reported in September that, in accounts to FBI agents and prosecutors, he described his company winning millions in federal funding by financing politicians' campaigns, and named Collins as the most important among his backers.
- In 2019, Kao claimed, the person leading Collins's Super Pac sought $500,000 from him.
- He claimed he then sent $150,000 through a shell company, and that Collins's office later promised to secure $32m in naval contracts.
- ProPublica reported the Senate allocated at least $10m that year based on Navatek's proposals; Collins says she backed the funding only because the University of Maine asked.
- The outlet did not report that the full $32m was awarded.
The ProPublica reporting
To check Kao's version of events, ProPublica says it went through FBI evidence plus thousands of pages of legal filings and spoke with dozens of people, and much of his account held up.
- Among emails the reporting cited, one shows Super Pac chair Scott Reed answering Kao's shell company plan with "Very smart".
- Another asked for Kao's phone number so Collins could thank him.
- FBI agents, per ProPublica, wanted in 2024 to widen their work into a broader bribery case, but that effort fell apart after Donald Trump came back to office and cleaned out the bureau's public corruption teams.
- The reporting noted that no charges were brought against anyone around Collins. Kao turned down an interview request, while Reed says he never talked about Kao or Navatek with Collins or anyone on her staff.
The ethics complaint
The ethics complaint that prompted Collins's response was filed the previous week by Valerie Adams, a lawyer in Maine who, she noted, lost her election in the June primary to be district attorney. Collins dismissed it as the work of "partisan Democrats", and said it was not up to her whether an ethics inquiry happened.
