Susan Collins’s Flimsy Corruption Defense Collapses

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, trying to refute corruption allegations, may have just proven them. 

Earlier this week, ProPublica exposed Collins’s involvement in an alleged illegal pay-to-pay scheme with a defense contractor. Collins has denied the allegations.

“The Biden-led Justice Department and FBI totally cleared my office, my campaign and me five years ago of these seven-year-old allegations,” Collins told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. 

But as it turns out, Collins’s denials don’t add up. Collins’s claim that the Biden administration didn’t find any wrongdoing only applies to allegations as of 2021. The ProPublica article concerns allegations made by former Navatek CEO and Collins campaign donor Martin Kao from 2022 to 2024, which the FBI was still investigating until the probe was shut down during the current Trump administration. 

ProPublica also pointed out in its report that the defense contractor Navatek, which allegedly had Collins steer government contracts its way in exchange for campaign cash, didn’t provide anything of value to the people of Maine.

Steve Abbott, who is managing Collins’s reelection campaign, claimed at a press conference Wednesday that Navatek’s research in 2019 benefited the University of Maine, who used it to launch a new boat last month. He even held up pictures of the boat at the press conference. Unfortunately for him and Collins, the University of Maine debunked his claim.

“This most recent boat has no Navatek connection, and UMaine has not worked with Navatek since 2021,” the University of Maine’s Samantha Warren said.

Annie Clark, Collins’s deputy chief of staff, also attacked the ProPublica article, claiming that it relied on 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,” referring to Kao. 

ProPublica pointed out that it didn’t simply print Kao’s words at face value, but reviewed evidence gathered by the FBI, thousands of pages of legal records, and sources familiar with Navatek as well as the FBI’s investigation. 

All of this does not reflect well on Collins in the midst of a tough reelection campaign against former Maine state Senator Troy Jackson, who is polling neck-and-neck with her in a year where Republicans are historically unpopular. In November, Maine voters may choose to reject a  senator surrounded by corruption who supports a corrupt president. 

The lead prosecutor who unsuccessfully tried Chicago’s anti–Immigration and Customs Enforcement “Broadview Six” protesters resigned from the Justice Department “under protest” on Thursday—and accused the Chicago branch of the DOJ of pushing politically motivated charges on her way out.

In a resignation letter obtained by The New York Times, prosecutor Sheri H. Mecklenburg claimed that she was used as a fall woman for the DOJ’s failed prosecution of the six people who protested outside an ICE detention center in Broadview last year—and was threatened with firing if she spoke up. She named U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros as the specific person who pushed for her to pursue felony charges and who hung her out to dry when they failed to stick.

“Preventing me from defending myself is particularly reprehensible given the Office’s failure to adequately defend me.... You sent an office-wide email laying responsibility at my feet for a felony prosecution that you personally directed over my objection that the case was better suited to misdemeanor charges,” she wrote. “You then publicly announced an investigation of my conduct spanning twenty years. These inexplicable actions severely damaged a reputation I worked hard to build over decades and have damaged my prospects for future employment and income.”

The DOJ denies Mecklenburg’s claims.

This case was a disaster for the DOJ. They initially tried to hit the Broadview Six—which included then congressional candidate Kat Abugazaleh—with felony conspiracy charges carrying a maximum sentence of six years in prison for blocking an ICE vehicle. The case was thrown out with prejudice by a federal judge in April after it was found that Boutros had been in contact with members of the grand jury in the case.

This massive failure, like many of the Justice Department’s overzealous charges, shows that most of these charges are rushed, and pushed by attorneys who are extensions of the Trump administration rather than independent adjudicators of the law.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed America’s service members and their families to vote in the midterm election, not-so-subtly suggesting Friday that they could make the difference in some districts predicted to vote blue.

He cited a 2024 presidential election analysis as evidence, claiming that 300,000 “warriors” were not registered to vote that year.

“That’s more than the ballots cast in cities like Detroit, Boston, Milwaukee, or Seattle,” Hegseth said in a video statement, specifically naming liberal cities.

“As you know, the war department exists to protect our nation and her freedoms. That includes the freedom to decide who leads us, and the right to vote,” Hegseth continued. “Regardless of your home state or current duty status, you can use a standardized federal postcard to register and request a ballot, and if you’re forward deployed and your standard ballot is delayed, you can use the federal write-in absentee ballot. All of these processes are straightforward and protected by law.”

Hegseth also had an explicit message for U.S. commanders, telling them to “get out the vote.”

“You’re not telling them who to vote for, you’re just telling them to vote,” Hegseth said.

“Every warrior deserves an opportunity to cast his or her ballot, and be confident that it will be counted. Keep our nation the land of the free and the home of the brave,” he said. “Get registered and vote.”

The order to America’s 2.1 million service members comes as Republicans stare down some sorry odds ahead of the midterm elections. But the party’s affiliation with the Trump administration has yet to help the cause.

Donald Trump has done almost nothing to assist his Republican subordinates. In just his second term alone, Trump has repeatedly incensed the American electorate by thrusting the country into a forever war with Iran, indiscriminately annihilating small watercraft in the Caribbean and the Pacific, abducting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a midnight raid, aggravating America’s longest alliances—most notably with Canada—with a seemingly endless fountain of shitposts, tearing down the White House in order to build a $600 million, gold-laden ballroom, and repeatedly kowtowing to Moscow.

He also decided to make an already contentious midterm cycle a referendum on his popularity, despite the fact that his popularity is currently tanking in the polls.

Saudi Arabia has not ruled out developing a nuclear weapons program, according to U.S. intelligence.

The Washington Post reports that in classified documents provided to Congress, American intelligence agencies assess that the Saudi government wants to keep the option of building nuclear weapons open, a disturbing prospect considering that President Trump signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia in July to build four nuclear plants in the country.

At the time, Trump stressed that there would be “no enrichment of material” as part of the deal, but that’s not what it says in writing. In fact, the deal is much less restrictive than other agreements under Article 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Some Democrats are concerned over the deal giving Saudi Arabia a path to enriching uranium to nearly 20 percent, which could be diverted into weapons.

In contrast, President Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal only allowed Iran to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent, and only for 15 years. Trump heavily criticized that deal during his 2016 campaign for president, and later scrapped it after he was elected.

The Post’s report seems to confirm Democrats’ fears. Right now, the Saudi nuclear deal is under a 90-day review in Congress, and legislators have the ability to block the deal with enough votes. Some Democratic senators are signaling that they might take action.

“With this deal, the Trump administration is departing from precedent, adopting looser restrictions, and caving to Saudi demands by agreeing to a process that is all but certain to allow Riyadh to acquire the means to enrich uranium and possibly develop nuclear weapons,” Senators Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley wrote in a letter Friday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

In 2018, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that his country would develop nuclear weapons if Iran did. It’s one of the reasons Merkley signed the letter, as he doesn’t trust Riyadh on this issue.

“It’s bogus as hell,” Merkley told the Post. “If they’ve given up the intent to develop a nuclear weapon, then they’d give up domestic enrichment and reprocessing power, right? They’d accept massive inspections from the [International Atomic Energy Agency.]”

Pope Leo XIV made a point to express his support for the free press, firing a stray at President Trump—whose ongoing White House ban on MS NOW, CNN, and Politico is still being legally contested.

“I’m just wondering if you had a word for some of our colleagues at CNN who are having difficulties with the White House,” a reporter asked the pope on Friday while en route to France.

“I am very happy that here, you are all welcome,” Pope Leo replied. “Good coverage … I think it’s important that we have it all the way around, for everyone.”

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly temporarily reinstated the outlets’ access for a two-week period starting Thursday morning—an order that the Trump administration defied twice the same day.

The first American pope has been quite talkative this week. He also criticized AI and the damage it has inflicted on the human essence on Friday, stating that “it cannot answer questions that concern the meaning of life, which is rooted in lived experience.” He has also long criticized the Trump administration’s current war on Iran, which notably sparked a threat from the Pentagon in April.