The Navatek File: What’s Proven, What’s Alleged and What’s Unresolved in the Susan Collins Report

Intro

A defense contractor’s former CEO is in federal prison for illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). A new investigation now says the FBI later wanted to go much further.

ProPublica reported Tuesday that FBI agents sought in 2024 to open a broad pay-to-play inquiry examining dealings between Collins and a major donor, and that the effort died after Donald Trump returned to office and purged the bureau.

The report landed 42 days before Collins faces a difficult reelection race against Democrat Troy Jackson.

Collins’s office denies any wrongdoing. The FBI says its earlier review cleared her. This article breaks down which parts of the story are established in court, which rest on documents, and which rest on the word of a convicted felon.

Background: Navatek and Martin Kao

Navatek was a small Hawaii engineering firm. According to ProPublica, it was founded in 1978 by Steven Loui and long relied on earmarks steered by the late Sen. Daniel Inouye.

After Inouye’s death in 2012 and the end of earmarks, Martin Kao, who had joined as CFO in 2008, became CEO and later bought the company. Under Kao, annual revenue grew from roughly $10 million to nearly $40 million by the time of his 2020 arrest.

Maine became a key market. Collins sat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Navatek partnered with the University of Maine on boat-hull research.

The Court Record: What Is Established

Kao’s crimes are not in dispute.

The shell company. A $150,000 donation to 1820 PAC, the pro-Collins super PAC, came from a newly formed LLC called the Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers. The money originated in Navatek’s account, which violated the ban on donations by federal contractors. The Campaign Legal Center flagged the filing and complained to the FEC, and Honolulu Civil Beat traced the LLC to Kao’s wife within days.
Straw donors. According to the indictment, Kao gave Navatek money to relatives, who then donated about $33,000 to Collins in 2019.
The outcome. Kao pleaded guilty in fall 2022 in two cases, one for campaign finance crimes and one for Paycheck Protection Program fraud. He was sentenced in 2025 to 87 months in prison.

No one working for Collins was charged. Her office says the matter was resolved in 2021, when the campaign gave up the illegal contributions, which it says Kao made without its knowledge.

Policy Explanation: The Laws in Play

Two separate legal questions sit inside this story, and they carry very different burdens of proof.

Campaign finance violations. Federal law bars government contractors from making political contributions (52 U.S.C. §30119). It also bars giving money in someone else’s name (52 U.S.C. §30122). Kao was convicted under this framework.

In simple terms: a contractor cannot donate, and no one can launder a donation through relatives or a front company.

Bribery. Bribery requires proof of a quid pro quo, meaning something of value exchanged for an official act. The Supreme Court narrowed what counts as an “official act” in McDonnell v. United States (2016). In Snyder v. United States (2024), it held that the federal bribery statute covering state and local officials does not reach after-the-fact gratuities.

In simple terms: showing that donations and government money arrived around the same time is not enough. Prosecutors must prove an agreement to trade one for the other.

ProPublica itself notes that building a corruption case against elected officials requires extraordinary proof of a quid pro quo, partly because the Supreme Court has narrowed the definition of bribery.

Examples: What the Documents Reportedly Show

ProPublica says it reviewed FBI evidence and company emails and independently corroborated much of Kao’s account. NexfinityNews has not reviewed these records. The key reported items are:

The 2019 Corner Bakery meeting. Scott Reed, who chaired the Collins super PAC, reportedly met three Navatek executives in Washington and asked for $500,000. In emails, Kao told Reed he would route the money through an LLC, and Reed replied approvingly.
The $32 million email. After the $150,000 check cleared, Kao told colleagues in a February 2020 email that Collins’s office would support $32 million. Records show the Senate allocated at least $10 million that year based on Navatek proposals.
Navy contact. A February 2019 Navy email says a naval official had spoken with Collins’s office about the $8 million and that Navatek was the interested company.
The appropriations language. The Senate Appropriations Committee’s 2019 defense report set aside $21.5 million for research lines that, according to former employees and internal documents, Navatek had requested. The company is not named on the page.
The thank-you call. A week after the super PAC cashed the shell-company check, one of Reed’s subordinates asked a Navatek lobbyist for Kao’s phone number so Collins could thank him.
The reallocated contributions. Emails show Kao asked Collins’s campaign to move his excess contributions to his father. An FBI agent flagged this in a presentation to prosecutors as contrary to election law.

Allegations Resting on Kao’s Word

Some of the most serious claims come only from Kao’s statements to investigators.

Kao told the FBI that Collins said in a private 2019 meeting that he had seen her deliver. He also said he had to agree to donate before she would meet with him. In September 2024, he gave agents a 50-page document naming more than a dozen members of Congress and their staff.

ProPublica acknowledges the obvious problem: Kao had credibility issues as a felon trying to shorten his prison term. He also declined through his lawyer to answer ProPublica’s questions.

The Responses

Collins’s office. Deputy chief of staff Annie Clark said the office strongly denies Kao’s bribery and pay-for-play claims and considers them outlandish. She said the campaign was not part of Kao’s discussions with the super PAC and that the office fully cooperated with the FBI. Clark also said the campaign was never a target of the investigation.

The FBI. Spokesperson Ben Williamson said the bureau had investigated the claims years ago and found nothing implicating Collins or her campaign. He did not answer questions about the new investigation opened in 2024.

Scott Reed. Reed said he never communicated with Collins or her staff about Kao or Navatek.

Lobbyist Glen Mandigo. Mandigo denied telling Navatek that Collins’s support depended on donations.

Navatek’s founder. Loui, who has regained the company and renamed it PacMar, said it has received no Collins-supported funding since Kao’s arrest.

Impact: Why the Probe Ended

ProPublica reports that the two lead agents belonged to CR-15, the FBI’s public corruption squad. FBI Director Kash Patel dismantled that unit after Trump took office. One agent was fired in October 2025 over her work on the 2020 election investigation and is suing. The other was pushed out in early 2026.

The Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section also collapsed in February 2025 after staff were ordered to drop the Eric Adams case.

The broader inquiry was not limited to Maine. A new investigation approved before the agent’s firing centered on South Carolina, and the FBI had questions about a steak dinner Kao shared with Sen. Lindsey Graham. No wrongdoing by Graham has been alleged.

On the campaign side, Reed again chairs the main Collins super PAC, and Amy Abbott, who corresponded with Kao about his family’s contributions in 2019, is finance director of the 2026 campaign.

Where the Race Stands: The Pre-Report Baseline

The Navatek report arrives in one of the closest Senate races in the country. Collins is the only Republican senator representing a state Trump never carried, and Democrats have not won a Maine Senate race since 1988. Jackson became the nominee at a July 25 convention after Graham Platner withdrew. The election on Nov. 3 will use ranked-choice voting.

Every public poll below was fielded before ProPublica published. None yet measures the report’s effect.

Pollster	Field dates	Sample	Jackson (D)	Collins (R)
Rasmussen Reports	Sept. 8–10	1,033 LV	46%	45%
CNN/SSRS	Aug. 31–Sept. 6	LV	48%	45%
Abacus Data	Aug. 26–28	327 LV	52%	43%
Abacus Data	Aug. 26–28	500 RV	45%	46%
Fox News	Aug. 6–10	1,000 RV	48%	46%
UNH Survey Center	July 15–20	1,178 LV	49%	46%

LV = likely voters; RV = registered voters. All polls fielded before the Sept. 22 ProPublica report.

Rasmussen’s mid-September survey found Jackson ahead by one point, with 9% of voters unsure. Among unaffiliated voters, 17% were still undecided. The CNN/SSRS poll had Jackson up three among likely voters.

Abacus Data shows how much sample choice can move the numbers. Among likely voters, Jackson led by nine. Among all registered voters, Collins led by one.

The RealClearPolitics average puts Jackson ahead 47.2% to 45.4%, a 1.8-point margin, and rates the race a toss-up.

In simple terms: no poll shows either candidate with a lead larger than the survey’s own margin of error, except the Abacus likely-voter sample, which was small.

What the Prediction Markets Say

Prediction markets are far more confident than the polls.

On Kalshi, a federally regulated prediction market, traders put Jackson’s chance of winning at 72% and Collins’s at 28% as of 6:50 p.m. ET Tuesday. Jackson’s price rose 4 points on the day the ProPublica report was published. The market has traded more than $9.1 million.

In simple terms: a Kalshi contract pays $1 if its outcome happens. A 72-cent price for “Jackson wins” means traders collectively put his chances at about 72%. It is a market price, not a survey of voters.

The market’s history tracks the race’s turning points. The Democratic side of the contract traded in the high 60s to low 70s through spring 2026, fell to near even around Platner’s withdrawal, and recovered after Jackson’s nomination.

The gap between polls and markets. The polling average shows a statistical tie. The market treats Jackson as a clear favorite. That gap suggests traders are pricing in more than topline polls, such as the national environment and Trump’s unpopularity in Maine. A one-day price move does not show that the report changed any votes. Markets can be thin, react to headlines before voters do, and reflect the people trading rather than the electorate.

Why These Numbers Matter for This Story

The polls suggest the race is being decided on Collins herself. In the CNN poll, 71% of Jackson’s supporters said their vote was mainly against Collins rather than for Jackson, while 74% of Collins’s supporters said they were voting for her. Collins was viewed unfavorably by 51% of voters, against 41% favorable.

Collins has run on her record of bringing federal funds to Maine as Appropriations chair. That is the same power at the center of the Navatek allegations. How voters weigh the two is the question the next round of polling will answer.

The caution. Maine polls have missed on Collins before. She trailed in nearly every public poll against Sara Gideon in 2020, then won by about 9 points. Sabato’s Crystal Ball still rates the race a toss-up but says its best guess remains a Collins win.

Analysis

The story has three layers, and they should not be collapsed into one.

Layer one: the proven crimes. Kao’s contractor-funded and straw-donor contributions are settled. He pleaded guilty and is in prison.

Layer two: the documented conduct. The emails described by ProPublica show fundraising and contracting advocacy happening close together. The real question is whether this crosses from legal but uncomfortable into criminal. After McDonnell, that line is high. Appropriators routinely advocate for home-state contractors, and those same contractors routinely donate.

Layer three: the unproven allegations. Kao’s claims of explicit trades have not been tested in court or before a grand jury, and under current Justice Department leadership they likely will not be.

That is the central accountability gap. The FBI’s statement concerns the earlier review. It does not address the 2024 inquiry prompted by Kao’s cooperation. Those are two different investigations, and the public has an official conclusion on only one of them.

Conclusion

Maine voters will weigh this with no charges, no court findings on the bribery question, and a firm denial from the senator. They will also have documents showing her campaign orbit and a convicted contractor in close contact while federal money flowed to his company.

Whether the 2024 inquiry would have found a crime is unknowable. That it was closed without an answer is the part of the story officials have not yet explained.

Key Takeaways

Former Navatek CEO Martin Kao is serving 87 months for illegal campaign contributions to Collins and her super PAC, along with PPP fraud.
No one working for Collins has been charged. The FBI says its earlier review found nothing implicating her or her campaign.
ProPublica reports the FBI sought a broader bribery inquiry in 2024 based on Kao’s cooperation, and that it ended after the public corruption unit was dismantled.
The most serious claims, including explicit trades of donations for contracts, rest on Kao’s own statements.
The legal bar for bribery after McDonnell is high. Close timing between donations and appropriations is not proof of a crime.
All public polls, fielded before the report, show a race within the margin of error, with a RealClearPolitics average of Jackson +1.8.
Prediction markets are more lopsided than polls. Kalshi gave Jackson a 72% chance on Sept. 22, up 4 points on the day the report was published.

Related Coverage

Political Polling: How Do They Keep Getting It Wrong?

Sources

NexfinityNews has not independently reviewed the FBI records and internal Navatek emails described by ProPublica. Prediction-market prices and polling figures are as of Sept. 22, 2026.