'Nothing wrong': Sen. Collins' campaign denies bribery claims in ProPublica report

PORTLAND (WGME) -- More allegations, controversy and push-back are swirling Thursday around Senator Susan Collins, her 2020 re-election campaign and claims of a "pay to play" bribery scheme involving a now convicted former defense contractor.

ProPublica, a national public interest reporting group, published a new report Thursday, disputing claims from the Collins campaign that these allegations are "recycled" and that she and her campaign have already been fully exonerated.

They say the allegations involve the now convicted former head of Navatek, Martin Kao, who's serving time in federal prison, and his claims that he steered large campaign donations in exchange for lucrative contracts.

While the FBI did investigate links and donations from Kao, Navatek and any "shell companies" to Collins and others, that investigation was dropped with no specific wrongdoing leveled against Collins or her staff.

But ProPublica insists FBI documents show the full investigation didn't end until President Donald Trump took office and made cuts to the FBI.

“We did not take the word of anyone for our story,” ProPublica Investigative Reporter William Turton said. “We did our own independent investigation, interviewed dozens of people and relied on FBI investigative material and the FBI themselves after subpoenaing thousands of documents. They were able to corroborate Kao's claims.”

They also defend the timing of their report, so close to an important election.

“We publish stories when they are ready,” Turton said.

Collins's long-time campaign director, Steve Abbott, responded to the ongoing reporting by ProPublica and their latest claims Thursday.

That includes the claims there are emails showing the FBI was still interviewing the convicted former CEO of Navatek as late as 2024 and still investigating his claims that he was bribing high-profile politicians, including Susan Collins, in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

Abbott says that interview with Kao was happening around the time of his federal sentencing, and to their knowledge, nothing he gave the FBI was new, and that it did not lead to any new investigations of Collins or her staff.

“Susan Collins and her staff have done absolutely nothing wrong,” Abbott said. “The FBI said as much and the Department of Justice sent Martin Kao to prison and never made us the subject of an investigation. All of these allegations involve the same conduct from 2019. I don't care what ProPublica thinks they have for documents. There is nothing out there that implicates our campaign, or our Senator, in any wrongdoing."

As for claims that Trump killed any investigation into Collins when he resumed office, Abbott points to a letter Collins sent to then Attorney General Pam Bondi in early 2025, urging her department not to cut FBI agents, which he says would have included any agents possibly investigating them.

The Maine Democratic Party reached out to CBS13 about these allegations Thursday.

Dr. Nirav Shah says while it's too early to call this particular situation "corruption," he says where there is smoke, there's often fire, adding there's a lot of smoke in this situation.

He says the party is calling for an investigation to help them understand whether the outlined allegations constitute political corruption.

“To put it really bluntly, what we know from the allegations that have been outlined so far is that there has been a quid and there has been a quo,” Shah said. “There has been a quid in the form of money being contributed to Senator Collins' super PAC, and we have evidence that there was a quo in the form of government defense contracts that were given to that company. The question we have to answer now is whether that quid was for the quo.”

CBS13 asked Shah, with Election Day less than two months away, if we will get an answer to that question before then.

He says we may not, adding it's up to the Trump administration to kickstart the investigation.