Augusta, ME – Today, a new report in Zeteo reveals that while serving on the Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, Susan Collins took campaign cash from the family members of a pharmaceutical company executive around the same time that the company received a $4.5 million contract from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The revelations come as Collins is already under scrutiny for receiving donations from straw donors associated with Navatek CEO Martin Kao.

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Zeteo: Collins <3 Contractor Cash

By Andrew Perez

October 6, 2026

• Over the last few weeks, Maine’s Senate race has been roiled by the revelation that the FBI had been investigating bribery allegations made by a federal contractor who steered $150,000 to Susan Collins’s super PAC during her 2020 campaign, until Donald Trump’s FBI shut down the probe. According to ProPublica, Collins steered millions of dollars in contracts to the company, Navatek, which produced essentially nothing of value for the government in return.

• Collins denies wrongdoing but the hits have kept coming, as she prepares to debate Democrat Troy Jackson on Tuesday. The Intercept reported Monday that Collins, who chairs the Senate appropriations committee, and her political committees received $58,000 from a defense company that scored an expensive win through the appropriations process: $345 million for the Army to procure a vehicle it didn’t need.

• There’s a broader history here for Collins, who in 2011 was the lead sponsor of a bill to bar the federal government from requiring contractors to disclose political spending.

• In addition to the $150,000 super PAC donation, ProPublica noted it reviewed emails showing that Navatek’s CEO, upon learning he donated more than was allowed to Collins’s campaign, directed Collins’s team to instead record the excess contributions as if they had come from his father, which is illegal. Navatek’s CEO was ultimately indicted for making around $33,000 in illegal donations to Collins using straw donors.

• It’s not the only instance of Collins receiving donations from relatives of the head of a government contractor that would find itself under federal scrutiny. Federal records show that in 2020, relatives of QOL Medical’s CEO made several contributions to Collins, amid a spree of donations to lawmakers. QOL received a $4.5 million contract around that time from the Department of Veterans Affairs; Collins served then on the Appropriations subcommittee on veterans affairs. QOL went on to pay $47 million to settle claims it engaged in a kickback scheme that defrauded federal health programs.