Defense Money and Susan Collins: What the Record Shows

A convicted contractor says he bought help from Collins's allies, ProPublica has widened its reporting to other lawmakers, and Collins denies wrongdoing as polls show her race tied nine days before Election Day.

By Richthrax · Oct. 25, 2026

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, which writes the Pentagon's budget. She is seeking a sixth term Nov. 3, and reporting since September has focused on defense contractors' money around her campaigns.

No charge has been filed against Collins, and no court or ethics body has found that she did anything in exchange for donations. Collins denies wrongdoing.

The Navatek allegations

ProPublica reported Sept. 22 on the account of Martin Kao, former CEO of Navatek, a Hawaii defense contractor. Kao told the FBI that the head of a pro-Collins super PAC promised $32 million in Navy contracts in exchange for a $500,000 donation, and that he sent $150,000 through a shell company, the Portland Press Herald reported.

Kao pleaded guilty in 2022 to charges including money laundering and bank fraud and is serving an 87-month sentence, The Boston Globe and The New York Times reported. ProPublica noted his history of lying and exaggerating, and said it corroborated many of his claims through internal Navatek communications and emails from a Navy official, according to the Press Herald.

The Times reported the same day that the FBI closed an inquiry into a Collins political adviser in 2025, after President Trump returned to office, because senior officials questioned Kao's account. Officials said agents found little evidence to support it but acknowledged more might have emerged had the inquiry continued, according to the Times report as republished by GV Wire.

FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said the bureau "ultimately found nothing implicating Senator Collins or Senator Collins' campaign," Fox News reported.

Collins called the reporting "a smear job" and called Kao "a convicted liar," Fox News reported. Deputy chief of staff Annie Clark said the campaign "cooperated fully with the FBI" and returned the money, according to the Times report. On Oct. 6, the Collins campaign released records showing Collins backed a joint University of Maine and Navatek project in 2017, at the university's request, and a photo of her meeting Kao months before any donation, WGME reported.

Reporting widens to other lawmakers

In a second installment published Oct. 20, ProPublica reported that Kao also told the FBI about dealings with Sen. Lindsey Graham and Reps. James Clyburn and Joe Wilson, all of South Carolina. The FBI's inquiry is "effectively dead" after two lead agents were fired or pushed out, ProPublica reported in the story, republished by Honolulu Civil Beat.

Offices for all three denied wrongdoing, according to ProPublica. Graham died earlier this year, the outlet reported; a spokeswoman for his successor called the allegations "simply false." Williamson called Kao's claims "half baked" and "misleading," ProPublica reported.

The installment repeated that Collins and the super PAC's leader deny Kao's account and that her campaign gave up Kao's contribution.

Trucks the Army didn't want

In May 2025, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll announced the Army would stop buying the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, made by AM General, International Business Times reported. Congress completed a defense spending package Feb. 3 that included $345 million for the vehicles.

In the weeks after, AM General employees, its employee PAC and executives tied to its owner, KPS Capital Partners, gave about $50,000 to Collins's fundraising committees, International Business Times reported Oct. 6, summarizing reporting by The Intercept. Collins had last received money from AM General or its parent's employees more than a decade earlier, according to The Intercept's report as summarized by Joe.My.God.

Collins's office said she did not influence the decision and that it was made by the leaders of the House and Senate defense spending subcommittees. In the Senate, those are Sens. Mitch McConnell and Chris Coons, International Business Times reported.

On the campaign trail

The candidates met in four debates. In the first, Oct. 6, Democrat Troy Jackson said of the Navatek allegations, "It's a pay-to-play scheme involving her office and our taxpayer dollars," Raw Story reported, citing the Press Herald. Collins again rejected the ProPublica reporting as untrue, according to the same report.

At a New Balance factory in Norway, Maine, Collins praised a deal for the Pentagon to buy Maine-made athletic shoes for troops, Semafor reported Oct. 23. "For years, we have argued that our American troops should wear American-made athletic shoes," she said. At a Portland town hall the next day, Jackson called Collins corrupt, according to Semafor.

The race

Jackson, the former Maine Senate president, won the Democratic nomination at a July 25 convention after Graham Platner withdrew.

A Fox News poll of 1,514 likely voters taken Oct. 16 to 20 found Collins and Jackson tied at 49% each, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, the Bangor Daily News reported Oct. 22. October polls from InsiderAdvantage, Suffolk University and Rasmussen Reports showed Jackson ahead by 2 points, and polls from Marist and The Washington Post showed him ahead by 4, according to the Bangor Daily News.