Collins rips report on pay-for-play allegations: ‘Partisan hit job’

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) ripped a recent report about an FBI inquiry into an alleged pay-to-play scheme as a “partisan hit job” and “offensive.”

“I do not understand how anyone would take the word of a felon who’s been convicted twice — twice — two separate cases of five counts of money laundering, counts of bank fraud, false submissions to the [Federal Election Commission],” Collins told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that aired Wednesday, referencing former Navatek CEO Martin Cao.

“He is a convicted liar, and when you contrast that to my decades of honest public service … with the utmost integrity … it is so offensive,” she added, calling the report “a partisan hit job.”

ProPublica released a bombshell report on Tuesday , reporting that the FBI investigated an alleged scheme between the senator’s office, Collins’s super PAC and defense contractor Navatek.

The reporting cites testimony from Kao in addition to 2019 emails and correspondences seen by the outlet showing that Collins’s super PAC asked Navatek executives for donations in exchange for the senator working to award Navatek more government contracts. Collins is the chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.

Many of the bribery allegations came from Kao, who pled guilty for several campaign finance violations in 2022. Kao was separately sentenced to 87 months in prison in 2025 regarding COVID-19 relief wire and bank fraud.

ProPublica also reported that many of the federal officials investigating the case around the alleged Collins pay-to-play scheme were removed from the Trump administration or quit during the president’s second term.

The allegations raise serious questions for Collins, who is running against Democrat Troy Jackson in a tough reelection battle. Several members of the Collins campaign have strongly denied the allegations raised in the report.

“What they’re saying is that those of us who have worked for Senator Collins — long-time campaigns, federal work as well — the allegation is that I, we, all of us, for $40,000 in risking serious federal jail time for a contribution to the campaign, would engage in bribery, extortion, and pay for play, and I find that incredibly offensive,” Collins campaign manager Steve Abbott told reporters on Wednesday.

He called the allegations “false” while noting that the FBI informant was coming from “a guy who was awaiting sentencing for a significant federal offense, who was trying to get his sentence reduced, as the article states correctly.”

Collins deputy chief of staff Annie Clark also aggressively denied the news outlet’s reporting in a lengthy statement on the social media platform X .

“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,” Clark said Tuesday, while calling Kao an unreliable and dishonest witness.

“It is important to note that during the Biden Administration the FBI and the Department of Justice thoroughly investigated the Navatek matter,” she wrote. “The Collins campaign cooperated fully with the FBI throughout the investigation, producing all of the documents it requested and serving as fact witnesses in official settings.”