They met at a Corner Bakery near the Capitol. Scott Reed, chair of a pro-Susan Collins super PAC, sat with Martin Kao and three Navatek executives as Kao said Navatek would cut a six-figure check if Collins would guarantee “tens of millions” in future Navy funding — and that the money would be routed through a shell company so the source would be concealed.
The Corner Bakery meeting and the $150,000 payment
According to testimony and emails reviewed by ProPublica, the Corner Bakery meeting produced an initial $150,000 payment from a shell LLC named the Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers. Kao told Reed the shell was cleared by his lawyer; Reed replied “Very smart” in an email. Seven days after the super PAC deposited the check, a Reed subordinate emailed a Navatek lobbyist: “Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him.”
Prosecutors later charged Kao with illegal campaign contributions; he pleaded guilty in the fall of 2022. Collins’ deputy chief of staff, Annie Clark, told ProPublica the senator’s office “vigorously” denies Kao’s bribery allegations, that the campaign “fully cooperated” with the FBI, and that the Collins campaign disgorged the illegal contributions “without our knowledge.” An FBI spokesperson, Ben Williamson, said the agency had previously investigated claims against Collins and “ultimately found nothing implicating Senator Collins or Senator Collins’ campaign.”
Navatek’s playbook: lobbying, tailored reports, and “the valley of death”
Former Navatek executives described a systematic approach: pick powerful appropriators, team with a local university to craft a research pitch, hire well‑connected lobbyists to secure meetings, and then work with congressional staff to place narrowly written program language in the defense appropriations reports. A 2019 Senate Appropriations Committee report contained $21.5 million in language that matched projects Navatek had drafted, including “hybrid composite structures research” and “electric propulsion for military craft.”
Inside the company, a slide said Navatek “thrives in the valley of death,” acknowledging that projects often produced PowerPoint deliverables rather than deployable military systems. Kao’s stewardship grew Navatek revenue from roughly $10 million to nearly $40 million annually before his arrest, while the company spent more than $500,000 on five lobbying firms in the second half of 2019 alone.
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End the scrambleKao’s cooperation, the 50‑page road map, and investigators’ conclusions
After federal agents raided Navatek in September 2020, Kao pleaded guilty to fraud and campaign finance crimes and began cooperating with investigators. Over three days in the U.S. attorney’s office in Honolulu, he gave detailed interviews and, in September 2024, handed the FBI a 50‑page document naming dozens of lobbyists, staffers and members of Congress and providing contact information the agents could subpoena.
FBI agents who worked the case said they corroborated much of Kao’s account in corporate records and emails. By late 2024, agents and prosecutors believed they had sufficient evidence to pursue a broader bribery probe and considered undercover operations. Kao told investigators he viewed the donations as necessary bribes to buy Navatek’s way into the defense budget: “It takes two to tangle,” he told the FBI.
Kao was sentenced to 87 months in prison; the judge declined to reduce his sentence on account of cooperation. Founder Steven Loui has since reclaimed the company, renamed it PacMar, and told ProPublica Kao’s methods were “unethical and illegal” departures from prior practice.
The Trump administration’s personnel changes and the investigation’s collapse
According to the reported record, the momentum toward a wider corruption investigation stalled after “Trump returned to the White House.” The article says the president stacked the Department of Justice with allies, demanded a purge of officials who had investigated him, and that specialized FBI anti‑corruption teams were “eviscerated.”
Agents Michelle Ball and Kevin Gounaud — senior CR‑15 anti‑corruption investigators who worked Kao’s cooperation — were removed: Ball was fired in October 2025 after being accused of “weaponiz[ing]” law enforcement and is challenging that firing; Gounaud was pushed out in early 2026. In February 2025, the Public Integrity Section collapsed after prosecutors were ordered to drop a case; leadership resigned and remaining prosecutors were told to halt new corruption cases. Former officials told ProPublica the result was that the Kao‑triggered probe is now “dead” and “the government is no longer talking to an informant who had offered a road map to corruption in Congress.”
What this means for Senator Collins, Navy contracting officers, and FBI investigators
- Susan Collins and her campaign: Collins’ office denies Kao’s bribery allegations. The campaign refunded the illegal contributions and, according to the office, “fully cooperated” with the FBI; Collins is campaigning on her appropriations record in a competitive 2026 race.
- Navy contracting officers: former Navy contracting officials told ProPublica they sometimes felt pressure to comply with congressional direction because those appropriations funded their offices — a dynamic agents cited as enabling Navatek’s awards even when Navy officials did not want the work.
- FBI anti‑corruption investigators: agents who assembled evidence and believed a broader probe was warranted were removed or quit; the specialized unit that pursued public corruption has been largely dismantled, halting the effort that Kao’s cooperation had opened.
Kao’s cooperation produced a detailed record and a map of relationships that agents believed could reveal pay‑for‑play schemes. According to the reporting, those leads were never fully pursued after personnel shifts at DOJ and the FBI ended the unit that had been assembling the case. The documents and emails remain part of the public record and court files; whether the material will ever be tested in further prosecutions is, for now, unresolved.
