Susan Collins has a defense, and it is this: the man who says he funneled money to her allies for federal contracts is a convicted fraudster. That is true. Martin Kao is serving 87 months for fraud and campaign finance crimes, and the Maine senator, who is fighting for re-election in November, says his story is "completely false" after The Guardian reported that the FBI examined the claims.
The problem for Collins is that a convicted crook can still be a witness, and in this case the paper trail apparently backs up a lot of what he said.
The Defense Is 'He's a Crook,' Full Stop
Collins was asked about an ethics complaint filed last week by a Maine attorney, and she came out swinging. She said the allegations were recycled from 2020 and had been rejected by the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Federal Election Commission. She said she had never even heard of Navatek, the defense contractor Kao used to run.
She says it was the University of Maine, not Navatek, that asked her to back a research grant. And she says Kao "spun this story up again in the hopes that the judge would be lenient, or the prosecutor would be."
That is a coherent argument. Convicted people do try to buy leniency by offering up bigger fish. Nobody serious disputes that. But "the guy is a liar" only works as a complete defense if the guy is the only evidence, and that is where this story gets uncomfortable.
What Kao Told the FBI
ProPublica reported in September that Kao told FBI agents and prosecutors his company won millions in federal funding by bankrolling politicians, with Collins as his most important patron. He claimed the head of her super PAC asked him for $500,000 in 2019. He says he sent $150,000 through a shell company, and that Collins's office later promised to secure $32 million in naval contracts.
Collins says she backed the Navatek-linked funding only because the University of Maine asked. ProPublica found the Senate allocated at least $10 million that year based on Navatek's proposals, though it did not report that the full $32 million was ever awarded.
So the headline number is contested. The $10 million is not.
The Emails That Don't Help Her
ProPublica says it reviewed a trove of FBI evidence and thousands of pages of legal records, interviewed dozens of people familiar with Navatek and the inquiry, and independently corroborated much of Kao's account. This was not one jailhouse snitch and a vibe.
Among the emails cited: super PAC chair Scott Reed replying "Very smart" to Kao's shell company plan. Another asked for Kao's phone number so Collins could thank him.
Collins says she has a photo of Kao meeting with her and others in her office many months before he made a single contribution. Fine. That tells us when they met. It does not tell us what happened after. Reed, for his part, denies discussing Kao or Navatek with Collins or her staff.
The Investigation That Died on Schedule
Here is the part that should make you set your coffee down. ProPublica reported that FBI agents sought to open a broader bribery investigation in 2024, and it collapsed after Donald Trump returned to office and purged the bureau's public corruption teams.
No one in Collins's orbit was charged. That is a fact. It is also a fact that the people who might have charged someone were cleared out of the building.
Collins leans on that outcome. "I was never even interviewed because there was no evidence for it," she said. Maybe. But a case that never got opened is not the same as a case that got tested and failed. One is an acquittal. The other is a locked door.
Why Won't She Just Ask for the Ethics Inquiry?
Pressed on why she wouldn't welcome an ethics inquiry to clear her name, Collins said it was not up to her. That is technically true and also the most politician sentence ever spoken. A person with nothing to hide can say "investigate me, please" in about four words.
Instead she dismissed the complaint as the work of "partisan Democrats" and Valerie Adams, a Maine lawyer "who lost her election" in the June primary for district attorney. Attack the messenger, mention the electoral loss, move on.
Notice what that response skips. It doesn't engage with the emails. It doesn't explain the $10 million. It just tells you who filed the paperwork.
The Dingo Take
Eighty-seven months. That is the sentence Martin Kao is serving, and it is the only number in this story that nobody disputes. Everything else, the $500,000 ask, the $150,000 shell company transfer, the $32 million promise, is a fight between a convicted fraudster and a senator who has spent a career selling Maine voters on her independence and integrity.
Collins may well be telling the truth. Kao may well be gaming the system for a shorter stay. But "he's a crook" is a character reference for the case, not a rebuttal to the evidence, and ProPublica says it corroborated much of what he said. A senator with a clean record does not need to lean this hard on the other guy's rap sheet.
And then there is the elephant stomping through the room. The FBI wanted to open a bribery investigation in 2024, and the unit that does that work got gutted when the new boss arrived. You don't have to believe Collins took a dime to find that arrangement deeply convenient. Maine voters get to decide in November whether "never interviewed" means "innocent" or "never asked." We know which one we would want settled before casting a ballot.
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