Skip to content
ThreadOut
Molly Redden@mtredden · Sep 22, 2026

Exclusive: In late 2024, FBI agents were looking at Sen. Susan Collins’ role in a massive illegal bribery scheme…

6 tweets1 min read♥ 3.8Koriginal

Summary

ProPublica reports that FBI agents were investigating Senator Susan Collins for allegedly accepting $190k in bribes from federal contractor Martin Kao in exchange for steering nearly $40 million in government contracts to his boat-building company, but the investigation was abandoned after Trump's DOJ purge removed the anti-corruption agents involved.

Summarized by ThreadOut AI from the full thread. May miss nuance — read the thread below.

  1. #1

    Exclusive: In late 2024, FBI agents were looking at Sen. Susan Collins’ role in a massive illegal bribery scheme alleged by a former federal contractor. Then Trump gutted the FBI and DOJ, leaving no one to carry on the investigation – it’s dead. 🧵

  2. #2

    The contractor, Martin Kao, claimed he bribed Collins with campaign money for her help securing gov contracts for his boat-building company, Navatek. Kao routed $190k to Collins at a low point in her 2020 reelection effort. Collins steered almost $40 mil in contracts to Navatek.

  3. #3

    “You’ve seen me deliver.” That’s what Collins told Kao, he said, as her staff pressured him to up his donations. Kao wound up giving the Collins super PAC $150,000 in late 2019. Weeks later, according to an email, Collins’ office agreed to support $32m in new Navatek projects.

  4. #4

    ProPublica is revealing the existence of the case for the first time. These are the kinds of corruption claims Trump’s DOJ ignores. So we did our own investigation—knocking on doors as far away as Hawaii, looking at thousands of records that got the FBI to take Kao seriously

  5. #5

    Collins’ office “vigorously” denied Kao’s bribery allegations, calling them “outlandish” The anti-corruption agents on the case were pushed out in Trump’s purge of the FBI. An FBI spokesman defended their ouster and said the bureau “ultimately found nothing” implicating Collins.

  6. #6

    Former Navatek executives, meanwhile, looked back with awe at how far their money went. “It was eye-opening for me, frankly,” said one. “‘Oh my God, all of it is for sale. It’s all for sale.’” READ MORE: propublica.org/article/fbi-su… with @AASchapiro @WilliamTurton @kirstenberg