Pay-To-Play
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What was the ProPublica investigation into Senator Susan Collins’ pay‑to‑play scheme?
Hello, this is Michael Moss. Heather Cox Richardson is unable to read the letter today, so I will be reading it in her place. September twenty third, twenty twenty six. Yesterday, William Turton, Abby Asher Shapiro, Molly Redden, and Kristen Berg of ProPublica published a blockbuster story reporting that the Anti Corruption Group of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating Senator Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, who had for engaging in a pay to play scheme in which defense contractor Navatec made illegal donations to her twenty twenty campaign and later got multi million dollar contracts from the government. Collins is the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. And yet, the story continues, when he returned to the White House in twenty twenty five, Trump fired the investigators billed in the case and largely stopped investigating public corruption.
While the primary witness in the case was Martin Cow, the man who allegedly engaged in the bribery, The ProPublica journalists corroborated much of Cow's account through public records, FBI evidence, and interviews with people who worked with Navatec and the FBI. Collins Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Clark said Collins' office vigorously denies allegations of bribery and pay to play, but she did admit that the Collins campaign disgorged the illegal contributions that Martin Cow had made without our knowledge. Emails suggest that, in fact, her office did know about the deal. After a one hundred fifty thousand dollars donation, a staff member from her office emailed a lobbyist for Navatec to ask for Cow's phone number, writing Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him.
Although the story's authors report that Navatec never produced a product the military needed. It did in fact receive millions in defense contracts. The bribery angle of this story is huge.
How did Trump’s 2025 actions affect the FBI anti‑corruption investigation?
So too is that the story suggests that Trump, at least, might perceive that he has something to hold over Collins' head to keep her behind his actions, even when they have dramatically weakened her power at the head of appropriations. The eighteen seventy three novel The Gilded Age, a tale of today, by Charles Dudley Warner and Mark Twain that gave the late nineteenth century its nickname was not about the riches of the industrialists who came to be known as robber barons, it was about the political corruption of the era. In the book, unscrupulous speculators bribe congressmen. A congressional appropriation costs money, a railroad man tells a naive youth who wonders where a two hundred thousand dollation has gone.
He listed the bribes his project required and noted that the high moral lawmakers cost more than the usual ones. It was an era in which lawmakers lived by the spoils system, as in to the victors go the spoils. Lawmakers at the time rewarded their business followers with government contracts and put supporters into political office. The businessmen and officials in turn would hire workers on the condition they voted for the party the boss supported. Every good man looks after his friends, as one politician put it. The US outlawed the spoils system in eighteen eighty three after a disappointed office seeker assassinated President James Garfield. Replacing it with the Merit Based Civil Service Reform Act or Pendleton Act.
Trump has ripped up those civil service protections, making much of the government staff again political appointees. Curiously, at the United Nations yesterday, Trump used the phrase to the victor belong the spoils. The relationship between the MAGA Republican agenda and the misuse of tax dollars is becoming more and more obvious since ProPublica ran the story last November of how contracts from the Department of Homeland Security appeared to be going to those personally tied to then Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome and her ally, Corey Lewandowski. In july twenty twenty six, Tarini Party, Josh Dawsey, Michelle Hackman, and Summer Saeed of the Wall Street Journal confirmed that Lewandowski effectively controlled billions in spending at Homeland Security.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What was the ProPublica investigation into Senator Susan Collins’ pay‑to‑play scheme?
0:07–2:27
2
How did Trump’s 2025 actions affect the FBI anti‑corruption investigation?
2:27–5:15
3
Why does the host compare today’s politics to the Gilded Age’s spoils system?
5:15–7:44
4
What evidence shows MAGA Republicans are misusing federal contract dollars?
7:44–9:41
5
How is U.S. tax money being used to fund the deportation of migrants to authoritarian regimes?
9:41–12:13
6
What happened in the ICE shooting of Venezuelan driver Wilbur Rafael Garces Pérez in Texas?
12:13–14:16
7
Why is the Trump‑funded White House ballroom project costing taxpayers over $300 million and violating fire codes?
14:16–15:59