FBI Eyed Susan Collins Over Defense Contractor's Donations — ProPublica - The Diigo Meta page

• 23 Sep 26
  

  Francois Guite

  In 2024, the FBI sought to launch a sweeping pay-to-play investigation examining interactions between Sen. Susan Collins and a top donor, records and emails show. The donor, an ex-defense contractor, told agents his company won millions in federal contracts by bankrolling campaigns of powerful politicians.

  United States corruption money government ethics investigation military politics

• 

  JT Fournier

  kleptocracy republicanism organized crime

• 

  warrior113 govguy

  Susan Collins Campaign contributions Bribery Super PAC Defense contractors:

  • Before the event, Kao said, Collins, Abbott and another staffer met with him in private. One of the staffers told Kao the campaign expected more donations. It was in this meeting that Collins said, “You’ve seen me deliver,” he told the FBI.
  • Kao, meanwhile, closed on a $4.5 million beachside home in an exclusive Honolulu neighborhood; the backyard pool had a waterfall feature. He renamed the company Martin Defense Group after himself, joking that it would simplify his future takeover of Lockheed Martin.
  • In early 2020, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit good government group, noticed something strange in the public filings for the Collins super PAC. The PAC had received a $150,000 donation from a newly created LLC with a typo in its name: the Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers, with no S at the end of “Scientist.”
  • Inside Navatek, Kao shifted into damage control mode. He spoke to Reed and the super PAC’s lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, and began to hatch a cover-up. In an email released in civil litigation, Mitchell suggested the society make charitable donations — preferably in Maine — which would make it seem like a legitimate nonprofit. “I want to be sure that the LLC proceeds with the ideas we discussed — giving scholarships and recognition to women in engineering, etc.,” wrote Mitchell. “That would help both of us, I think.”
  • Mitchell, who later played a major role in Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, did not respond to requests for comment.
  • Navatek’s public flameout attracted the attention of Michelle Ball and Kevin Gounaud, two experienced agents in the FBI’s elite anti-corruption unit. Gounaud was a 20-year FBI veteran who had worked on elaborate undercover operations. Ball had made a name for herself taking on politically sensitive cases. In 2018, she led the investigation into Maria Butina, the Russian agent convicted of infiltrating the National Rifle Association in an attempt to influence the Trump campaign.
  • The government charged Kao in two separate cases: one for defrauding the loan program and another for his campaign finance crimes. His love of talking like a wheeler-dealer — including over email — was a gift to investigators. In one email, he all but admitted the scholarships to young women were a diversion. “Whatever… just a pack of bitches getting free $,” he wrote.
  • Taxpayers funded Navatek’s entire political operation, Kao said. “Most companies of our size do not have the resources to endlessly hire expensive lobbyists and make political donations,” he told the FBI.

  6 more annotations...

Would you like to comment?

Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.