ProPublica reporter Molly Redden spent Wednesday morning taking apart the defenses Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) offered Tuesday night in her Senate debate with Democrat Troy Jackson, calling several of them inaccurate or misleading.
The dispute centers on ProPublica's reporting that the FBI was investigating whether Collins and her staff took part in a bribery scheme, an inquiry that fizzled after President Donald Trump's Justice Department gutted the bureau's ranks. The story rests on Martin Kao, a former government contractor facing prison who told agents he traded campaign donations for overvalued or worthless military contracts. Agents corroborated parts of his account and opened an investigation.
Collins pointed to a photo in the debate showing her with Kao at a meeting "months before there was ever a contribution." Her campaign has since released it.
But Redden said that doesn't contradict the story, which reports Kao's claim that Collins wanted a donation commitment before meeting. The photo shows a February 2018 meeting, and Kao gave $4,000 that June. Kao declined an interview, so what he agreed to isn't clear, but Redden noted that in politics money is often promised first and paid later.
She added that Collins hasn't addressed a bigger episode in 2019. Kao told investigators a top Collins fundraiser asked him for a large donation, and he gave $150,000. Two months later, Redden said, he emailed colleagues saying Collins had promised $32 million in new funding.
Collins also repeated her earlier claim that Biden's DOJ thoroughly investigated Kao and found his allegations false. Redden said the investigation at the heart of the story ended in 2025 under Trump and reached no conclusions. According to ProPublica, the agents working it were purged for having worked on cases Trump disliked, leaving no one to carry it forward.
Redden also took aim at campaign manager Steve Abbott's claims at a Tuesday event. He said Kao shopped the story to the FBI and "They didn't buy it." Redden said agents actually sifted through hundreds of thousands of documents to corroborate Kao and pushed for a full investigation. When Abbott accused ProPublica of swallowing Kao's account whole, she said reporters did no such thing. They reviewed evidence the FBI collected and interviewed dozens of people before publishing.
"Then we published the receipts," Redden wrote.
Collins has called the story a political hit job. Her campaign says it was never the target of any investigation and cooperated fully.
