The FBI's stalled probe into Susan Collins is a process failure

By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta · October 3, 2026

The FBI stopped investigating Senator Susan Collins for bribery after Donald Trump returned to office, allowing a suspected pay-for-play scheme to evade the law and damage public trust.

Senator Susan Collins is not innocent; she is merely unindicted. In a system where legitimacy is a capital stock that spends fast and refills slowly, the absence of a charge is not a vindication. It is a void. ProPublica reports that the FBI launched a bribery probe into the senator and her interactions with Martin Kao, the CEO of defense contractor Navatek. The probe did not end because the evidence vanished. It ended because the political wind shifted. When President Donald Trump returned to office, the FBI and Department of Justice teams handling public corruption cases were reduced. The investigation ceased. The government stopped talking to its informant. To claim that this outcome proves a lack of wrongdoing is to mistake a broken machine for a clean record.

The machinery of the quid pro quo

The facts of the Kao matter are not complex. Criminal bribery occurs if a company offers donations to a lawmaker in exchange for an official action, or if a lawmaker accepts such donations. According to ProPublica, the head of a pro-Collins super PAC met with Martin Kao and Navatek executives to request a $500,000 donation. Government contractors are prohibited from making political contributions. To bypass this rule, Kao sent $150,000 to the super PAC via a shell company. The head of the PAC called this move “Very smart” in an email.

The mechanism here is the same as in Abscam. In that operation, the FBI used a cooperating witness to expose a quid pro quo arrangement between government officials and a private entity seeking favors. Here, the witness was Martin Kao. Kao informed the FBI that Senator Collins committed to securing $32 million in naval contracts for Navatek. He told investigators that his company used contributions to Collins and her supporting groups to secure tens of millions of dollars in federal defense contracts.

This is a pattern we have seen before. In the Ohio House Bill 6 scandal, a legislative leader accepted millions in dark money via a shell company to secure a utility bailout. The use of a shell company is not a clerical error; it is a tool for concealment. The Portland Press Herald - Maine Sunday Telegram notes that the laws banning such behavior are “crystal clear.” The failure is not in the law, but in the enforcement.

The fragility of the official act

Senator Collins describes the reporting as a “smear job.” She argues that the FBI “ultimately found nothing implicating” her. This is a convenient reading of a stalled process. The record shows that a grand jury indicted Martin Kao in 2022 for making illegal campaign contributions. He disclosed the details of the scheme to the FBI to seek a reduced sentence. When a witness provides a roadmap to a crime and the government stops driving, the result is not an acquittal. It is a surrender.

The defense will likely lean on the precedent of United States v. Bob McDonnell. In that case, the Supreme Court narrowed the definition of an “official act,” making it harder to convict officials who provide access or promotion without a formal exercise of government power. But securing $32 million in naval contracts is not "access." It is a specific government outcome. If the FBI stopped the probe because of administrative purges rather than a lack of evidence, the senator is benefiting from a shield provided by the executive branch.

The danger of this shortcut is that it creates a rule that only works while your people hold power. If the Department of Justice can shutter a corruption probe because the target is an ally of the president, then the law is no longer a rule. It is a preference.

The noise of the campaign

While the legal process failed, the political process has become a circus. Axios reports that Senate Majority PAC spent $3.4 million on attack ads based on the ProPublica investigation. These ads are a necessary correction to the record, but they are being drowned out by worse tactics.

WinSenate, another Democratic super PAC, has released ads claiming Senator Collins voted to “cover up the Epstein files.” FactCheck.org notes that these claims are misleading. Collins voted to table an amendment regarding Jeffrey Epstein because she believed it did not belong on a Department of Defense policy bill. She later supported a separate requirement to preserve those records and voted for the Epstein Files Transparency Act by unanimous consent.

The ads also claim a “business partner” of Epstein funneled $3 million to her super PAC. This refers to Stephen Schwarzman, who contributed to the group. The only link provided is that Schwarzman and Epstein were both founding members of the Core Club. To argue that membership in a social club makes two people “partners in business” is a legal fiction that would be laughed out of any courtroom.

I am coldest toward the side I agree with, and here the Democrats are failing the test. By using smears instead of the actual evidence of the Navatek probe, they are treating the truth as a secondary concern to the score. They are trading a legitimate legal scandal for a cheap conspiracy. This does not help the voter; it only reinforces the cynicism of people like Jim Volkernick, who told the Maine Morning Star that “they’re all doing it.”

The current polling shows Collins leading Troy Jackson. The Republicans have reserved $34 million of air time, while Democrats have $24 million. The money is flowing, but the accountability is not.

The lack of an indictment for Senator Collins is not a certificate of innocence. It is a symptom of a systemic collapse in how we police public corruption. When the FBI ceases a probe into a suspected quid pro quo because of a change in administration, the process is no longer neutral. I suspect that internal bureau memoranda will eventually leak, revealing that career prosecutors were pressured to drop the case. Until then, the senator remains a beneficiary of a system that protects its own by simply stopping the clock.

The FBI's stalled probe into Susan Collins is a process failure

The machinery of the quid pro quo

The fragility of the official act

The noise of the campaign

Sources