> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://ivn.us/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Did Trump's FBI Just Tip Maine and the Senate to Democrats? - URL: https://ivn.us/did-trumps-fbi-just-tip-maine-and-the-senate-to-democrats/ - Published: 2026-09-23T13:38:41.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-23T13:38:41.000Z - Description: A ProPublica investigation into Susan Collins, a defense contractor and a super PAC, is the strongest case yet for the law that three out of four Mainers have already passed. - Author: Cara Brown McCormick - Tags: 2026 Midterms, Commentary, Maine Every so often, a piece of investigative journalism arrives that totally blows my mind. On Tuesday, [ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/fbi-susan-collins-navatek-campaign-donations-investigation?ref=ivn.us) published one. Reporters William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Molly Redden and Kirsten Berg drew on FBI evidence, thousands of pages of court records and dozens of interviews to reconstruct how a Hawaii defense contractor called Navatek bought its way into the federal budget, and who helped it get there. It is the first installment in a series; it is investigative reporting at its finest, and every Mainer (and American) should read it. The central figure in the investigation is Maine’s senior US Senator Susan Collins, whose influence is scrutinized alongside Navatek. For decades, Navatek had lived off federal money that Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye steered home. Then [Inouye died](https://alaskapublic.org/news/2012-12-18/hawaii-senator-daniel-inouye-passes-away?ref=ivn.us) in 2012, [Congress retired the earmark](https://www.cagw.org/all-about-earmarks-a-brief-history/?ref=ivn.us), and Martin Kao, who rose from chief financial officer to CEO and eventually owner of Navatek, had to find a substitute patron to keep the contracts flowing. Kao's answer was to cultivate the [lawmakers who write the spending bills](https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/about/history?ref=ivn.us). His recipe called for a few ingredients: a university partner in the right state, a generous upfront donation, a stable of expensive lobbyists, and patience while the dollars worked their way into the defense budget. Inside Navatek, people simply called it “the method.” Eric Schiff, a former Navatek executive, told ProPublica how it felt to watch that recipe work. > *“It was eye-opening for me, frankly. ‘Oh my God, all of it is for sale. It’s all for sale,’” Schiff said.* Maine offered everything “the method” required: a research university eager for partners and a senior senator on the Appropriations Committee. According to Kao, face time with Senator Collins in 2018 carried a price tag: a pledge of campaign money, which is legal if unlovely. Kao arrived at that first meeting with an $8 million proposal to study boat hulls alongside the University of Maine. Investigators would later trace [a burst of Kao family giving to Collins](https://www.wabi.tv/2021/05/19/fbi-investigating-alleged-illegal-contributions-to-sen-collins-reelection-campaign/?ref=ivn.us) that summer, landing just ahead of the moment the [$8 million turned up](https://www.collins.senate.gov/newsroom/senator-collins-joins-celebration-8-million-navy-contract-awarded-navatek-portland?ref=ivn.us) in the Pentagon budget. And when it came time for the US Navy to hand out the money, emails indicate Collins's staff told the service which company they had in mind, in a process meant to be open to all comers. By August 2019, the courtship had gone public. Collins toured Navatek's Maine operation and smiled for the cameras between Kao and JB Turner of Front Street Shipyard in Belfast, the Senator holding a scale model of the company's prototype vessel. Ahead of the visit, Kao had lined up upward of $40,000 in checks from his relatives. When he personally blew through the contribution limit, emails show, he told the campaign to assign the overflow to his father, which an FBI agent would later point out to prosecutors as violating federal election law. The Collins campaign's finance director wrote back with gratitude. Kao told investigators that in a closed-door session before the visit, Collins pointed to her results: "You've seen me deliver." Within weeks, a draft Senate defense spending plan carried [$21.5 million for Navatek's Maine projects](https://mainemorningstar.com/2026/09/22/the-fbi-anti-corruption-squad-was-circling-susan-collins-until-trump-got-in-the-way/?ref=ivn.us), earmarks in all but name. Kao wanted to give more than any candidate is allowed to take. A super PAC faces no such cap. So in the closing weeks of 2019, Scott Reed, chairman of the pro-Collins [1820 PAC](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00698126/?cycle=2020&ref=ivn.us), met with Kao and two of his executives and, by ProPublica's account, made a half-million-dollar ask. Kao told agents his side of the bargain came with conditions: a large new tranche of federal money for Navatek, and a promise that the senator would know exactly who was paying. He says Reed agreed to both. Federal contractors like Navatek are barred from political giving, so Kao dreamed up a front: an LLC called the Society of Young Woman (sic) Scientist (sic) and Engineers, a group with no members, no mission, and no existence beyond its bank account. He emailed Reed the idea. Reed's review: "Very smart." [The front sent $150,000 to the pro-Collins 1820 PAC](https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00698126/1376562/sa/ALL?ref=ivn.us) on 12/31/2019. Seven days later, Reed's operation reached out to [a Navatek lobbyist](https://www.linkedin.com/in/glen-mandigo-59558741/?ref=ivn.us) to get Kao's number because "Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him." Reed says he never talked about Kao or Navatek with Collins or anyone on her staff. Collins's husband, [Tom Daffron](https://www.legistorm.com/person/bio/5839/Thomas%5FA%5FDaffron.html?ref=ivn.us), [worked last year](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28606459-annual-report-for-2025-collins/?ref=ivn.us) for [Chesapeake Enterprises](https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/firms/chesapeake-enterprises?cycle=2019&firm%5Fid=196920&ref=ivn.us), a firm led by Reed, who currently chairs the pro-Collins [Pine Tree Results PAC](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00894709/?ref=ivn.us). Daffron and Reed also worked together as lobbyists for Chesapeake Enterprises more than two decades ago. [In February 2020, Kao brought his team to Collins's office](https://www.propublica.org/article/fbi-susan-collins-navatek-campaign-donations-investigation?ref=ivn.us). Afterward, he told his colleagues the office had committed to $32 million. When the Senate's numbers came out that year, at least $10 million of them traced back to Navatek's pitches. ### **And what did taxpayers get for all this?** By Kao's own admission to agents, very little. ProPublica could not identify a single Navatek product from his years in charge that the military later purchased. The Navy, a former employee said, had no interest in it. > 11/ Even Navatek’s executives were surprised at how far their money went in D.C. > > “It was eye-opening for me, frankly. ‘Oh my God, all of it is for sale. It’s all for sale,’” former executive Eric Schiff said. > > — ProPublica (@propublica) [September 22, 2026](https://x.com/propublica/status/2102352254749802634?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) The shell company fooled no one for long, and much of the credit goes to two watchdogs who worked on this for years, way before it became national news in the middle of this year’s reelection campaign. In February 2020, [The Campaign Legal Center](https://campaignlegal.org/update/clc-investigation-leads-criminal-charges-over-straw-donor-scheme?ref=ivn.us) caught a misspelled donor name in the super PAC's filings and asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate. [Nick Grube](https://www.civilbeat.org/author/ngrube/?ref=ivn.us), an investigative reporter at Honolulu [Civil Beat](https://civilbeat.org/?ref=ivn.us), quickly tied the mystery LLC to Navatek; his February 7, 2020 story followed a trail of donations from Kao's orbit to Collins. [Civil Beat kept at it ](https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/03/this-hawaii-defense-contractor-has-emerged-as-a-major-political-player/?ref=ivn.us)through the guilty pleas and the sentencing. > Kao political contributions were sprawling. He dished out donations all over the country and targeted senators on the appropriations committee. > > A [@civilbeat](https://x.com/CivilBeat?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) piece from 2020 detailed some of that giving.[https://t.co/S3YwXpz44W](https://t.co/S3YwXpz44W?ref=ivn.us) > > — Nick Grube (@nickgrube) [September 22, 2026](https://x.com/nickgrube/status/2102496426718630202?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) As the scheme surfaced, the super PAC's attorney, Cleta Mitchell, floated an idea for making the fake society look real: have it award engineering scholarships to young women, with an eye toward Maine, "where the bad press was." > *“*[*According to information available to the Commission,*](https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7690/7690%5F36.pdf?ref=ivn.us) *after the Complaint in this MUR became publicly known, attorney Cleta Mitchell, who represented 1820 PAC, advised Kao to begin making donations from the Society to universities, to put some meat on the bones; Kao understood her advice to mean that Navatek should cause the Society to appear to have a purpose other than the donation to 1820 PAC. Kao also stated that Mitchell advised him to alter the Navatek financial records to make the accounting code appear as if the $150,000 contribution from the Society was a distribution to Kao instead of Navatek’s money and that 1820 PAC should not return the $150,000 because then it would look as though the Society and Navatek had been caught. In an ongoing lawsuit that Navatek brought against Kao and others, emails emerged showing Kao and others mocking the idea of a philanthropic organization assisting women.”* Meanwhile, Kao was digging a second hole, inflating his payroll to extract $13 million in pandemic relief. In April 2021, authorities served Kao with a [search warrant](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20744899-navatek-search-warrant/?ref=ivn.us). In May 2021, [Axios broke the story that the FBI was investigating](https://www.axios.com/2021/05/18/susan-collins-reelection-investigation-finance-scheme?ref=ivn.us). In 2022, [Kao pleaded guilty](https://www.courthousenews.com/racketeering-claims-survive-against-former-defense-contractors-wife?ref=ivn.us) in both matters, including moving some $33,000 to Collins using family members as straw donors. At this point, Kao started talking to the feds in hopes of a lighter sentence. ProPublica says its reporting backed up much of what he claimed, and the FBI agents who reviewed the trove of material seized at his arrest concluded his story mostly checked out. By late 2024, the FBI was pushing to open a wider bribery case that, in their view, might touch lawmakers from both parties. In February 2025, [Kao was sentenced to over seven years in federal prison](https://www.justice.gov/usao-hi/pr/former-hawaii-ceo-sentenced-87-months-imprisonment-covid-relief-fraud-and-bank-fraud?ref=ivn.us). Around the same time, [the investigators themselves](https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/fbi-probes-defense-contractors-contributions-to-sen-susan-collins-11621382437?ref=ivn.us) became [the story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn20eayHHDI&ref=ivn.us). At the Justice Department, the Public Integrity Section fell apart amid the order to drop the Eric Adams prosecution. FBI Director Kash Patel dismantled CR-15, the bureau's unit for cases involving public officials. [Michelle Ball](https://courthousenews.com/fbi-agents-fired-for-work-on-2020-election-probe-sue-claiming-retribution/?ref=ivn.us), one of the agents who heard Kao's confession, lost her job in October 2025, punished for having worked on the special counsel's case about the 2020 election. “We are cleaning up a diseased temple three decades in the making,” Patel said at the time. Kevin Gounaud, Ball’s partner, was forced out in February 2026. Whatever case Kao's confession might have produced is gone. An FBI spokesman insists the bureau looked into Collins long ago and found nothing. Collins's office rejects the entire account. Annie Clark, her most important government aide, dismissed Kao's claims to ProPublica as baseless, said the campaign was never in the room for Kao’s talks with the super PAC, and said the matter ended in 2021 once the campaign returned his illegal donations. On X, Clark was blunter, calling the story "categorically false." > The seven-year-old allegations made against Senator Collins and her staff in this piece are categorically false. There have never been any allegations of wrongdoing by the Collins for Senator campaign, and the campaign was never the target of the FBI investigation. > > ProPublica… [https://t.co/h4YZ9Nxdpe](https://t.co/h4YZ9Nxdpe?ref=ivn.us) > > — Annie Clark (@annieclark25) [September 22, 2026](https://x.com/annieclark25/status/2102418037857022067?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=ivn.us) Here is what I want the rest of the country to understand. Mainers did not need an FBI investigation to tell them what a candidate-aligned super PAC is all about. They already voted on it. In November 2024, nearly 75 percent of voters approved Question 1, [capping contributions to super PACs at $5,000](https://mainemorningstar.com/2024/10/23/growing-bipartisan-support-for-maine-initiative-to-get-dark-money-out-of-politics/?ref=ivn.us). Consider what that $5,000 cap means in the context of this corruption scandal. Collins's campaign could accept only $5,600 per election from any one person. Her super PAC could take whatever a donor was willing to give. That gap explains everything. It is why a contractor who had already maxed out and was already routing money through his father and family went looking for a coffee shop and a much bigger door. I chaired Maine Citizens Against Super PACs, which brought Question 1 to the ballot, and I am an intervenor in the lawsuit defending it. Within weeks of the vote, two super PACs sued, and in July 2025 a federal judge blocked enforcement, leaning on SpeechNow v. FEC, the 2010 D.C. Circuit decision that gave birth to super PACs. But the judge also accepted the factual heart of our case: **that a super PAC contribution can be the payment side of a corrupt bargain.** On July 29, Neal Katyal argued our appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, with Larry Lessig at our side. Our argument is simple. Voters are entitled to a government free of corruption. They are also entitled to a government free of the appearance of corruption. The Supreme Court said so in Buckley v. Valeo half a century ago. SpeechNow, by contrast, declared that contributions to super PACs create neither. Tell that to anyone who reads the ProPublica story today. The appearance standard doesn't require a conviction, and I am not asking anyone to convict Susan Collins. No one needs a verdict to know something is wrong when a Hawaiian defense contractor's shell company writes a six-figure check to a senator's super PAC in Maine, the senator's side calls to say thank you, and the contractor leaves her office believing $32 million is on the way. An attorney for the Institute for Free Speech told the First Circuit that the law requires proof of an explicit exchange of money for an official favor. But notice the trap. **According to Kao, his whole operation was built so that no such proof would ever exist. The sensitive conversations happened face to face, never in writing. "That is why I literally had to fly to D.C. almost every week," Kao told the FBI. "Sometimes for a 15-minute meeting."** And as the ProPublica team explains, prosecuting a sitting lawmaker for corruption demands an exceptional level of proof, a bar the Supreme Court has kept raising. The FBI unit assembling that proof has been taken apart. If the only remedy for corruption is catching an explicit deal on paper, and the people making the deals know better than to put them on paper, voters are left with nothing. In any case, the people of Maine refused to accept that. We passed a law. If the First Circuit upholds it, the ruling would conflict with the D.C. Circuit and open a clear path to the Supreme Court. I’m not a lawyer, but Susan Collins may have just handed the justices their Exhibit A. Control of the Senate may well run through Maine this year. Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee, came out swinging. "This is corruption of the highest order," he said. "Susan Collins delivered millions in taxpayer dollars for a corrupt donor bankrolling her campaign, and then Donald Trump helped her cover it up." He demanded a full accounting of every contract and every conversation, and declared that “the jig is up.” Voters will weigh that charge against the senator's denials. No matter who wins in November, the deeper problem outlasts the election. “The method” worked because an unlimited super PAC sat right beside a limited campaign, and because everyone involved understood what to do. Mainers deserve so much better than all of this. More to the point, they know they deserve better. They said so at the ballot box by casting the most votes ever for any initiative in the state’s history. They are saying so now, in a federal courtroom in Boston. And they will decide this November whether it all matters enough to vote Collins out. --- *The full ProPublica investigation, "The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins," by William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Molly Redden and Kirsten Berg, is available at propublica.org and is the first in a series. Nick Grube's original 2020 reporting on the Navatek donations is available at Honolulu Civil Beat (civilbeat.org).*