Democrats in Maine are accusing Republican Sen. Susan Collins of "corruption" following an investigative report in ProPublica suggesting she steered federal dollars toward a contractor who contributed heavily to her 2020 reelection campaign.

Collins' office as well as FBI officials called the allegations false, saying lengthy federal investigations demonstrated that neither the senator nor her staff committed any wrongdoing.

The major player in the ProPublica article, Martin Kao, is already serving several years in prison for money laundering, bank fraud and defrauding the federal government. Kao pleaded guilty in 2022 to illegally funneling more than $150,000 to a super PAC supporting Collins through a shell company set up to hide the money's true source.

But the investigative news organization reported that Kao subsequently told federal investigators that he had orchestrated a "pay-to-play" scheme in which he, his associates or his company donated to members of Congress and, in return, received lucrative federal contracts for their firm, Navatek.

ProPublica described Collins as Navatek's "most important patron" and that "the senator's office steered government contracts worth millions toward the company while her campaign was pumping Kao and his network for donations." At the time, Collins was the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which she now chairs. One example of a federally Navatek project was a 3D-printed boat — funded with $8 million from the Navy — that was produced by a University of Maine engineering center.

“This is corruption of the highest order," Troy Jackson, Collins' Democratic opponent this November, said in a statement. "Susan Collins delivered millions in taxpayer dollars for a corrupt donor bankrolling her campaign, and then Donald Trump helped her cover it up. No wonder she voted with him 96% of the time and has rubber-stamped his agenda to hurt Maine."

Devon Murphy-Anderson, director of the Maine Democratic Party, said the reporting raises questions about Susan Collins' abuse of power.

"Mainers deserve transparency, and we deserve accountability. We deserve to know exactly what happened. We deserve to know whether taxpayer dollars were always being directed solely based on the interests of Maine people, or if there was something else at play," said Murphy-Anderson.

Murphy-Anderson characterized the allegations as a betrayal and says Mainers deserve representation in D.C. that they can trust.

But Collins described the ProPublica story about potential bribes as "a smear job" before the November elections.

In a Wall Street Journal podcast posted on Tuesday, Collins accused ProPublica of relying on statements from Kao , who she called "a convicted liar."

"And when you contrast that to my decades of honest public service . . . with the utmost integrity, it is so offensive," Collins told WSJ columnist Kim Strassel. "The Biden-led Justice Department and FBI totally cleared my office, my campaign me five years ago of these 7-year-old allegations. And the FBI said again today that these are completely false . . . But clearly the timing is not coincidental."

According to ProPublica, federal agents believed they had enough evidence in 2024 based on Kao's statements and documents to launch a broader bribery probe into Collins and other members of Congress. But President Donald Trump largely dismantled the public corruption investigative teams at the FBI and the Department of Justice after retaking office in 2025. And according to ProPublica, the two investigators pushing for a bribery probe were either fired or pushed out by the Trump administration as part of a purge of agents who helped with previous investigations into Trump or other public officials.

"We deserve answers about every contract and every conversation that Collins and her team facilitated on the backs of taxpayers," said Jackson, a former Maine Senate president. "The jig is up."

Collins' office fiercely refuted the allegations in the article, saying her offices fully cooperated with FBI and DOJ investigations into Navatek during the Biden administration.

“The seven-year-old allegations made against Senator Collins and her staff in this piece are categorically false," Annie Clark, deputy chief of staff for Collins, said in a statement on Tuesday. "There have never been any allegations of wrongdoing by the Collins for Senator campaign, and the campaign was never the target of the FBI investigation. ProPublica took the word of someone who pled guilty to five counts of money laundering, three counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, and making false submissions to the FEC."

Clark accused Kao of making "outlandish charges about the Collins office" in an effort to deflect blame for his own crimes just prior to sentencing but that his hefty jail time showed neither the FBI nor the judge believed him.

An FBI spokesman told ProPublica that the agency found no evidence implicating Collins or her campaign staff during its investigation, adding "any suggestion otherwise is totally false."

Collins has made her ability to bring federal money back to Maine a pivotal part of her campaign as she seeks a sixth term. Her seat is a top priority for both parties because Collins is the only Republican seeking reelection in a state that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris over Trump during the 2024 presidential election.

The two parties and their deep-pocketed political allies are expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the race, which could be key to which party controls the Senate next year.