Sen. Susan Collins, Navatek and an FBI pay-to-play probe that ended in the 2025 public-corruption purge (ProPublica, Sept. 2026)

Case

ProPublica reported on Sept. 22, 2026 that FBI agents sought in late 2024 to open a sweeping bribery probe after former Navatek CEO Martin Kao, convicted of illegal campaign contributions and loan fraud, told them his Hawaii defense contractor bought federal contracts with donations to lawmakers, and that Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was its most important patron. The case ended after the Trump administration purged the FBI and DOJ public-corruption teams in 2025. Collins denies any wrongdoing, the FBI says it found nothing implicating her, and no one in her orbit has been charged.

The donations and contracts (per ProPublica's review of FBI evidence)
In late 2019 Scott Reed, head of the Collins-aligned super PAC 1820 PAC, met three Navatek executives at a Corner Bakery in Washington and asked for a $500,000 donation. Kao told the FBI the company wanted Collins to guarantee tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding in return, and that Reed confirmed she would know who gave the money. Reed told ProPublica he never communicated with Collins or her staff about Kao or Navatek.
Government contractors are barred from making political contributions. Kao sent $150,000 to the super PAC through a newly created shell company, the Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers. In a Nov. 22, 2019 email Kao told Reed the LLC would be vague and hard to trace, and Reed replied, "Very smart and glad your counsel understands. Thanks for doing this." The Campaign Legal Center flagged the donation to the FEC in early 2020.
Seven days after the super PAC cashed the check, a Reed subordinate emailed a Navatek lobbyist asking for Kao's phone number: "Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him." Collins's campaign manager Steve Abbott said at a press conference that there is no record of her calling Kao, and that the campaign routinely thanks donors.
In February 2020 Kao reported to colleagues after a meeting with Collins's office: "Total of $32M will be supported." Records show the Senate allocated at least $10 million that year based on Navatek's proposals.
The 2019 Senate Appropriations Committee report set aside $21.5 million for three research projects that, according to internal documents and former employees, Navatek had requested, although the company is not named on that page.
Emails show Collins's office pushed the Navy to award specific contracts to Navatek even though awards are supposed to be competitive. A naval official wrote on Feb. 6, 2019 that after speaking with Collins's office about the $8 million, the interested company was Navatek.
Before an August 2019 Navatek event with Collins in Maine, Kao arranged more than $40,000 in donations from relatives. To stay under contribution caps he had his excess reallocated to his father, which an FBI agent flagged to prosecutors as against election law. The campaign's finance director, Amy Abbott, wrote "This is perfect" in reply. The indictment says about $33,000 reached Collins through straw donors in 2019.
Kao and his close associates donated nearly $900,000 to dozens of politicians, which ProPublica says helped Navatek operate in half a dozen states with over $40 million a year in government funding.

Kao's account and the FBI investigation
Kao was arrested on fraud charges on Sept. 30, 2020. He was charged in two cases, one for inflating payroll to obtain about $13 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans and one for campaign finance crimes, and pleaded guilty in both in fall 2022. He was sentenced last year to 87 months in prison, and the judge gave no leniency for his cooperation.
After his plea Kao met FBI agents and prosecutors in at least three multi-day interviews running into late 2024 and handed over a 50-page document naming dozens of lobbyists, congressional staffers and members of Congress who he said helped him trade cash for contracts. He told agents the politicians, Collins in particular, were willing participants: "It takes two to tangle."
Kao told the FBI that Navatek's work for the government had no real value, and ProPublica found its research under his leadership never produced products the military wanted to buy.
A December 2024 FBI document says hundreds of thousands of documents obtained by grand jury subpoena included several emails and other documents that corroborate Kao's statements. People familiar with the investigation told ProPublica that agents found Kao credible.
ProPublica notes Kao has credibility problems as a felon trying to avoid a long sentence, that he lied to colleagues and to Navatek's founder about his background, and that proving bribery of public officials is hard because the Supreme Court has narrowed what counts as bribery.
By late 2024 FBI agents Michelle Ball and Kevin Gounaud of the anti-corruption unit CR-15 believed there was enough evidence for a broader bribery investigation of members of Congress, according to a memo seen by ProPublica. Ball persuaded supervisors to approve a new investigation centered on South Carolina, including a steak dinner Kao shared with Sen. Lindsey Graham. Agents also questioned Kao extensively about Collins, and FBI records show they were still examining his relationship with Collins, her staff and super PAC employees in early 2025.

How the case ended
After Trump returned to office, FBI Director Kash Patel purged CR-15 agent by agent, ProPublica reports. Ball was fired in October 2025 in a one-page letter saying she had "weaponized" the Justice Department; ProPublica says she was targeted for her work on the special counsel's investigation of Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and she is challenging her firing in a lawsuit. Gounaud was pushed out in early 2026.
The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section collapsed in February 2025 after staff were ordered to drop the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Its leadership quit, and ProPublica, citing Reuters reporting, says Trump appointees ordered remaining prosecutors to halt new corruption cases. The career attorney assigned to Kao's case also quit.
ProPublica concludes that the investigation sparked by Kao's cooperation is dead and the government no longer talks to him. It describes the case as a casualty of the purge; the story does not report that anyone ordered the Collins inquiry closed.
The White House referred ProPublica to the FBI. FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson did not answer questions about the investigation launched in 2024 and said the Trump administration has removed agents only if they acted unethically, undermined the mission or engaged in weaponization of law enforcement.

Political context
Collins leads the Senate Appropriations Committee and is in a 2026 reelection race that could decide control of the Senate. Amy Abbott, the campaign finance director during the Navatek period, is finance director of her 2026 campaign, and Reed again chairs the main Collins super PAC.
The Maine Democratic Party's executive director, Devon Murphy-Anderson, said Maine people deserve clear and real answers from Collins.
Kao's playbook targeted appropriators of both parties, and he told the FBI he dealt with more than a dozen members of Congress. Emails show Andy Winer, a lobbyist who had been chief of staff to Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz, advising Kao on political contributions, which Winer says he understood to be lawful.

Legal backdrop: what the Supreme Court has said about bribery and corruption
McDonnell v. United States (June 27, 2016): in a unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court vacated former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's bribery-related convictions. It held that an "official act" must be a decision or action on a specific matter involving a formal exercise of governmental power, and that setting up a meeting, calling another official or hosting an event does not, standing alone, qualify.
McCutcheon v. FEC (April 2, 2014): by a 5-4 vote, with a plurality opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court struck down aggregate limits on an individual's contributions. The plurality said the only corruption Congress may target is quid pro quo corruption, and that spending large sums in connection with elections, but not in connection with an effort to control an official's duties, does not give rise to it. The dissenters argued this defines corruption too narrowly.
Kelly v. United States (May 7, 2020): in a unanimous opinion by Justice Kagan, the Court overturned the "Bridgegate" fraud convictions, saying the evidence showed wrongdoing, including corruption and abuse of power, but the scheme did not aim to obtain money or property as the fraud statutes require.
Percoco v. United States (May 11, 2023): in a 9-0 judgment, with an opinion by Justice Alito that Chief Justice Roberts joined, the Court threw out the honest-services fraud conviction of a former aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo because the jury instructions on when a private person owes the public a duty of honest services were too vague. Justice Gorsuch, concurring, would have held the honest-services statute itself too vague.
Snyder v. United States (June 26, 2024): by 6-3, in an opinion by Justice Kavanaugh that Chief Justice Roberts joined, the Court held that the federal law covering state and local officials, 18 U.S.C. section 666, criminalizes bribes but not after-the-fact gratuities. Justice Jackson, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, dissented. The case concerned state and local officials; the bribery and gratuity provisions for federal officials are a separate statute, 18 U.S.C. section 201.
Law-firm analyses of these decisions describe a steady narrowing of what counts as public corruption under federal criminal law. Convictions still occur: former Sen. Bob Menendez was convicted in July 2024 on 16 counts including bribery, in a case involving cash, gold bars and car payments, and was sentenced to 11 years.
Kao's $150,000 donation was unlawful independent of any bribery question: Navatek was a government contractor, which may not make political contributions, and the money came through a shell company. Kao pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes.

Perspectives

Official position — Sen. Susan Collins, her office and her campaign
Collins's deputy chief of staff Annie Clark told ProPublica the office "vigorously" denies the bribery and pay-for-play allegations, calls Kao's claims "outlandish," says the campaign was not part of the discussions between Kao and the super PAC, and says the office fully cooperated with the FBI. Clark says the issues were resolved in 2021 when the campaign disgorged the illegal contributions Kao made without its knowledge, and that the FBI and the court "obviously did not believe Kao." Collins has said the Biden-led Justice Department and FBI cleared her years ago of seven-year-old allegations. Campaign manager Steve Abbott said the campaign has no record of Collins calling Kao and routinely thanks donors. Collins's office did not specifically address questions about the Corner Bakery meeting, her relationship with Kao or the money she helped appropriate for Navatek.

Official position — FBI (spokesperson Ben Williamson)
The FBI says it investigated claims against Collins years ago and ultimately found nothing implicating Collins or her campaign, and calls any suggestion otherwise totally false. It did not respond to questions about the new investigation launched in 2024 based on Kao's cooperation. The spokesperson also said the Trump administration has removed agents only if they were found to have acted unethically, undermined the mission or engaged in weaponization of law enforcement.

Defender — Scott Reed, chair of the Collins super PAC
Reed told ProPublica he never had any communications with Collins or her staff about Kao or Navatek, and noted that Kao is now in federal prison. He did not answer detailed questions about the Corner Bakery meeting or the $150,000 donation.

Defender — Lobbyists Glen Mandigo and Andy Winer
Mandigo, who lobbied for Navatek and the University of Maine, denied taking part in a pay-to-play arrangement. He said he never advised Navatek that Collins's support depended on donations and that in 25 years of working with Collins and the Maine delegation he never saw such behavior. Collins's office told ProPublica it was wholly inaccurate to say Mandigo was close to the office. Winer said the contributions he discussed with Kao were understood by him to be lawful, that he never participated in or knew of any illegal contribution, bribe or agreement to trade a contribution for official action, and that he stopped working with Navatek after Kao's arrest.

Critic — Steven Loui, Navatek founder
Loui, who sold Navatek to Kao and reported him to federal authorities, told ProPublica that Kao's method of winning contracts was unethical and illegal and a departure from how the company operated before he sold it. He said money appropriated by Sen. Daniel Inouye was a minority of Navatek's revenue before Kao, that the company cooperated with law enforcement after Kao's arrest, and that it received no Collins-supported funding afterward. Loui has regained control of the company, renamed PacMar, and is suing Kao to recover money he says Kao took.

Editorial read — ProPublica reporters (response to Collins's claims)
ProPublica says some of Collins's statements are inaccurate. It says the investigation at the center of its story rested on claims Kao made between 2022 and 2024, not seven-year-old allegations, and ended in 2025 under Trump after the assigned agents and prosecutors were purged, not under Biden; the 2021 clearance Collins cites refers to the FBI's earlier investigation of Kao, which led to no charges against anyone in her orbit. It says FBI records show agents were still examining Collins and her staff in early 2025, that it did not simply take Kao at his word but reviewed FBI evidence and thousands of pages of records to corroborate much of his account, and that the Reed and Collins emails it published are consistent with Kao's version of events.

Critic — Critics of the Court's corruption rulings (including the McCutcheon dissenters)
Critics argue the Court has defined corruption too narrowly. The dissenters in McCutcheon said limiting corruption to quid pro quo exchanges of money for official action leaves out how large donations buy influence, and law-firm analyses of McDonnell, Kelly and later cases describe a steady narrowing of what federal prosecutors can charge as public corruption. On this view, the combined effect is that donations followed by official favors, or payments routed through intermediaries, are hard to reach under the bribery laws.

Defender — Defenders of the rulings (Chief Justice Roberts's opinions and supporting commentators)
Defenders say the rulings protect political speech and ordinary politics from overbroad prosecution. In McCutcheon the plurality held that Congress may regulate contributions only to prevent quid pro quo corruption and its appearance, not to limit general influence or access. In McDonnell the Court said the government's reading of "official act" would raise significant constitutional concerns, and commentators point to the unanimity of that decision as showing the Court's resistance to criminalizing ordinary politics, however unseemly. Several of the narrowing decisions were unanimous or written by justices of different ideological camps, including Kagan in Kelly and Kavanaugh in Snyder.

Editorial read — The Author (site author)
The Author's view is that the Court's narrowing of bribery law and its limits on regulating money in elections, together with a justice system that is not making the situation better, contribute to a broader problem: that quid pro quo corruption is hard to prove even when it may be occurring. This is an interpretive view, not a sourced finding. The sourced sections of this entry separate what the reporting documents from what remains unproven and disputed, and note that ProPublica attributes the end of this particular inquiry to the purge of the FBI and DOJ corruption units, not to the legal standard.

Research notes
Open leads: (1) Everything here comes from ProPublica's Sept. 22 story and its Sept. 23 follow-up. ProPublica says its story is the first in a series, so later installments may add to or change this entry. (2) Kao's 50-page document to the FBI, the FBI's Dec. 2024 documents and the 60-slide presentation to prosecutors have been seen only by ProPublica; the allegations in them are unproven. (3) Kao told the FBI he dealt with more than a dozen members of Congress and their staff of both parties; this entry covers Collins, and the separate South Carolina line of inquiry, which included a steak dinner Kao shared with Sen. Lindsey Graham, is only mentioned. (4) Not found: any court ruling or official finding on the allegations against Collins, an ethics or inspector general review, or any statement from the Justice Department itself beyond the FBI spokesperson. (5) Check for follow-up reporting on Scott Reed, the 1820 PAC and the other lawmakers Kao named.

Note
The bribery allegation rests mainly on Kao, a convicted felon seeking a lighter sentence, and Collins, her campaign and the FBI deny any wrongdoing; ProPublica describes the case as a casualty of the purge, not a shutdown ordered at the Collins probe.

Sources
[1] ProPublica — The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way (https://www.propublica.org/article/fbi-susan-collins-navatek-campaign-donations-investigation) · 2026-09-22
[2] ProPublica — Susan Collins Dismissed Our Reporting as Old News. Some of Her Claims Aren't True. (https://www.propublica.org/article/debunking-susan-collins-fbi-navatek-investigation-claims) · 2026-09-23
[3] Local 10 (syndicated) — Maine Dems hammer Collins over report of pay-to-play probe; GOP senator calls it 'completely false' (https://www.local10.com/news/politics/2026/09/23/maine-dems-hammer-collins-over-report-of-pay-to-play-probe-the-gop-senator-calls-it-totally-false/) · 2026-09-23
[4] NACDL — Supreme Court rejects government's expansive interpretation of "official act" (McDonnell v. United States) (https://nacdl.org/newsrelease/NewsRelease-06-27-2016) · 2016-06-27
[5] Federal Election Commission — McCutcheon v. FEC: Supreme Court finds aggregate biennial limits unconstitutional (https://www.fec.gov/updates/mccutcheon-v-fec-supreme-court-finds-aggregate-biennial-limits-unconstitutional) · 2014-04-15
[6] DLA Piper — Supreme Court strikes down individual aggregate contribution limits (McCutcheon) (https://www.dlapiper.com/insights/publications/2014/04/supreme-court-strikes-down) · 2014-04
[7] Faegre Drinker — Supreme Court Decides Snyder v. United States (https://www.faegredrinker.com/en/insights/publications/2024/6/supreme-court-decides-snyder-v-united-states) · 2024-06-26
[8] SCOTUSblog — Kelly v. United States case page (https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/kelly-v-united-states) · 2020-05-07
[9] Supreme Court of the United States — Percoco v. United States (opinion) (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/598us2r16_4gdj.pdf) · 2023-05-11
[10] Hogan Lovells — Supreme Court curtails federal public corruption prosecutions in "Bridgegate" case (https://www.hoganlovells.com/en/publications/supreme-court-curtails-federal-public-corruption-prosecutions-in-bridgegate-case) · 2020-05
[11] Dinsmore — Supreme Court Narrowly Defines "Official Act" in McDonnell Case (https://dinsmore.com/publications/supreme-court-narrowly-defines-official-act-in-mcdonnell-case) · 2016-06-27
[12] TNND — Former Senator Bob Menendez sentenced to 11 years in prison on bribery charges (https://foxsanantonio.com/news/nation-world/former-senator-bob-menendez-sentenced-to-11-years-in-prison-on-bribery-charges-egypt-convictions-adam-fee-new-jersey) · 2025-01

Connections

Same context — Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle: reported request that a donor pay her $100,000 American Express bill, and promotion of Aktor Group (Sept.-Oct. 2026)
Both involve a donor seeking help from officials in exchange for money, in Guilfoyle's case reported help with DOJ and IRS matters; this is an inferred connection, and Guilfoyle's lawyer disputes the authenticity of the messages.

Shared mechanism — Collapse of environmental enforcement against polluters
In both entries Justice Department enforcement capacity was reduced after 2025, which ProPublica says ended the Collins inquiry; this is an inferred connection between the two enforcement areas.

Same context — Contracts and payments to Trump allies: documented cases and the open question of no-work retainers (2025–2026)
Both ask whether government contracts and payments follow political ties, including work of questionable value; Kao told the FBI Navatek's work had no real value. This is an inferred connection, not one stated by a source, and the Collins case involves a senator of the other party.

Same context — Military-industrial complex: Trump family ties to defense contracts
Both concern defense-sector contracts going to politically connected companies; this is an inferred connection, and the Collins case involves no Trump family member.

Shared mechanism — Oil-industry gifts to Trump committees (2023-2025): what FEC filings show
Both involve large super PAC donations followed by government action favoring the donor's industry; this is an inferred connection, and neither entry establishes a quid pro quo.