Collins called ProPublica's reporting old news. ProPublica checked.
Susan Collins is running for a sixth Senate term in Maine while simultaneously managing two overlapping controversies: an FBI bribery probe tied to defense contractor Martin Kao, and a campaign donation story involving Reid Weingarten, a lawyer with Epstein-linked clients. Collins called ProPublica's investigation 'old news.' ProPublica's response, published this week, is that several of her specific factual claims about the FBI probe don't hold up. That rebuttal is the story. Almost no one outside ProPublica is telling it.
Susan Collins Faces Scrutiny Over Epstein-Linked Donation and Reporting Claims
3 sources · hover a dot to see coverage
What happened
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, seeking a sixth term in 2026, is facing scrutiny on two separate fronts. ProPublica has been investigating an FBI bribery probe involving Martin Kao, a convicted fraudster and defense contractor who allegedly funneled money to Collins through Navatek, a Hawaii-based naval research firm. Collins publicly dismissed ProPublica's reporting as old news and questioned Kao's credibility. ProPublica published a direct rebuttal this week, stating that some of Collins's specific claims about the probe are factually inaccurate. Separately, Georgia Rep. Mike Collins (no relation) called on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff to return a donation from Reid Weingarten, a defense attorney whose clients have included Jeffrey Epstein associates. Fox News broke that story exclusively. The Semafor piece in this set covers Tim Scott's Senate Republican messaging and does not address either Collins story. Four outlets, two different Collins-adjacent controversies, almost no overlap in what each one is actually reporting.
ProPublica published a point-by-point rebuttal of Collins's public statements
ProPublica's piece is the most substantive journalism in this set. The outlet reported that Collins dismissed its earlier investigation into the FBI's Navatek bribery probe as stale, then made specific public claims about the nature of that investigation. ProPublica says those claims are not accurate, though the excerpt available here does not enumerate which specific claims it disputes. The headline, 'Some of Her Claims Aren't True,' is a direct editorial assertion from an investigative outlet about a sitting U.S. senator's public statements. That is a significant claim, and it appears in exactly one of the four outlets here.
Fox News and the Daily Signal covered a different Collins story entirely
Fox News led with Collins's own attack posture, framing her as someone who 'tears into' bribery allegations, with Collins calling the FBI probe a 'political hit job' and questioning Kao's credibility. The Daily Signal covered Rep. Mike Collins's demand that Ossoff return the Weingarten donation, sourcing the story to Fox News's exclusive. Neither outlet mentioned ProPublica's investigation or its rebuttal of Collins's factual claims. The two right-leaning outlets and ProPublica are effectively covering parallel universes: one in which Collins is a victim of a political attack, one in which her response to that attack contains verifiable errors.
What one side told you that the other didn't
ProPublica says Collins made false claims. Three outlets don't mention it.
ProPublica's rebuttal of Collins's public statements about the FBI probe is the most checkable, consequential piece of journalism in this set. Fox News and the Daily Signal covered the same Collins story and quoted her dismissal of the probe as a 'political hit job' without noting that ProPublica had published a direct factual challenge to her characterization. Semafor didn't cover Collins at all. A senator's public denial being fact-checked by the outlet that broke the original story is not a footnote. It is the story.
Two separate 'Collins and Epstein-adjacent' stories ran as if they were one.
The headline framing across this set conflates two distinct controversies: the FBI bribery probe involving Kao and Navatek (the ProPublica and Fox News story) and the Weingarten donation to Ossoff (the Daily Signal and Fox News story). Susan Collins is a subject in the first. She is not a subject in the second at all — that story is about Jon Ossoff. The Daily Signal's headline, 'Collins Blasts Ossoff for Epstein-Linked Donation,' refers to Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia, not Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. A reader scanning headlines could easily conflate the two, and nothing in the framing discourages that.
Martin Kao's specific allegations against Collins appear in one outlet.
Kao, described as a convicted fraudster, is the central witness in the FBI probe ProPublica has been investigating. Fox News quotes Collins dismissing his credibility, but does not detail what Kao actually alleged. ProPublica's reporting on the substance of those allegations — the Navatek payments, the nature of the bribery claim — appears only in ProPublica's coverage. Collins's credibility attack on Kao is broadcast widely; what Kao said that prompted the attack is not.
What to watch
ProPublica's rebuttal names specific Collins claims as false. If Collins or her campaign responds with a detailed point-by-point counter, watch whether Fox News covers that exchange symmetrically — meaning whether it reports ProPublica's specific factual findings the way it reported Collins's denial. If no response comes within two weeks and the story drops, the rebuttal will have landed only inside the readership that already reads ProPublica.
See how outlets across the political spectrum framed this differently — and what each side left out.