A ProPublica investigation alleges that Navatek, a Hawaii-based defense contractor, used campaign contributions, lobbyists and congressional relationships to pursue federal contracts, portraying Sen. Susan Collins as the company’s most important patron. In late 2019, Navatek CEO Martin Kao allegedly offered $500,000 to Collins’s super PAC, 1820 PAC, in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts. Navatek then sent $150,000 through a shell company, and an internal email reportedly said Collins had committed to securing $32 million in naval contracts. ProPublica said it independently corroborated much of Kao’s account through records and interviews. Kao later pleaded guilty in federal cases involving illegal campaign contributions and COVID-era loan fraud, received an 87-month sentence, and gave the FBI a 50-page account naming lobbyists, congressional staffers and lawmakers he said participated in exchanging money for contracts. By late 2024, FBI agents believed the evidence warranted a broader congressional bribery investigation, but ProPublica reported that the effort collapsed after Donald Trump returned to the White House and FBI and Justice Department public-corruption teams were dismantled. Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson subsequently accused Collins of corruption and said Trump helped conceal the arrangement. Collins’s office called the allegations categorically false, said the campaign cooperated fully with the FBI, provided documents and witnesses, was never the investigation’s target, and had not been contacted about Kao since 2021.