Sarah

The seven-year-old allegations made against Senator Collins and her staff in this piece are categorically false. 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. As Martin Kao was awaiting sentencing, he began making outlandish charges about the Collins office, deflecting blame from himself and placing it on Senator Collins, including alleging that our office required contributions before taking meetings and engaged in extortion, pay for play, and bribery. The FBI and the Court obviously did not believe Kao, and in 2025 he was sentenced in two separate cases to prison terms of seven years and three years to be served concurrently, as well as an additional five years of supervised release at the end of his prison term. It is important to note that during the Biden Administration the FBI and the Department of Justice thoroughly investigated the Navatek matter. The Collins campaign cooperated fully with the FBI throughout the investigation, producing all of the documents it requested and serving as fact witnesses in official settings. In response to the allegations in the ProPublica piece, the FBI clearly stated that a suggestion of wrongdoing by Senator Collins or her staff is “totally false.” These issues were resolved in 2021, and the FBI has not contacted us about Martin Kao since then.