The FBI has shut down a corruption probe into a Hawaiian defense contractor accused of bribing U.S. lawmakers for Pentagon contracts, according to a ProPublica investigation published Sept. 22, 2026. The contractor, Navatek, allegedly sought to trade campaign donations for federal funding, and its former CEO told FBI agents that the scheme involved dozens of politicians.
According to the report, Navatek CEO Martin Kao met in late 2019 with Scott Reed, head of a super PAC supporting Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), at a Corner Bakery in Washington, D.C. Reed asked the Navatek executives for a $500,000 donation, and Kao told Reed that if they cut a big check, Navatek wanted Collins to guarantee tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding. Navatek planned to funnel the donation through a shell company to skirt campaign finance laws and conceal the source of the funds, and Kao wanted assurance Collins would know where the money came from, the report said.
Kao sent an initial $150,000 to the Collins super PAC using the shell company after the meeting, the report states. Two months later, he told Navatek executives that Collins had committed to getting the company $32 million in naval contracts, according to an internal company email reviewed by ProPublica.
In 2022, a grand jury indicted Kao for making illegal campaign contributions. No one working for Collins was charged. Facing prison time, Kao began cooperating with the FBI, giving agents a 50-page document naming dozens of lobbyists, congressional staffers and members of Congress he said helped him trade cash for contracts, the report said. Kao and his close associates had donated nearly $900,000 to dozens of politicians, allowing Navatek to establish operations in half a dozen states with over $40 million a year in government funding.
Kao’s interviews with the FBI lasted into late 2024. By the end of that year, agents had enough evidence to pursue a sweeping bribery probe that could ensnare top lawmakers of both parties, and they asked supervisors to approve a new investigation, the report said. Agents sifted through hundreds of thousands of records seized during Kao’s arrest and found many consistent with his account.
Then Trump returned to the White House, according to the report. The specialized FBI and DOJ teams handling public corruption investigations were eviscerated, one agent who took Kao’s confession was pushed out, and dozens of agents and prosecutors quit, including the career attorney assigned to Kao’s case. The investigation sparked by Kao’s revelations is dead, and the government is no longer talking to the informant, the report said.
FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson said the agency investigated claims against Collins years ago “and ultimately found nothing implicating Senator Collins or Senator Collins’ campaign. Any suggestion otherwise is totally false.” Williamson said the Trump administration removed agents only “if they have been found to have acted unethically, undermined the mission, or engaged in weaponization of law enforcement.” He did not respond to questions about the new investigation launched in 2024.
Annie Clark, Collins’ deputy chief of staff, said Collins’ office “vigorously” denies allegations of bribery and pay-for-play made by Kao, calling his claims “outlandish.” Clark said the office “fully cooperated” with the FBI investigation.
“The fact that the FBI and Biden-led Department of Justice thoroughly examined” the allegations and found no wrongdoing, Clark said, shows the claims lack merit.
ProPublica said it reviewed a trove of evidence gathered by the FBI and thousands of pages of legal records, and independently corroborated much of Kao’s account. The report is the first in a series of stories drawn from its reporting.
Sources: Defense One