In recent days, Republican Senator Susan Collins and her campaign are facing bribery allegations. According to a ProPublica report, in 2019, the head of Collins’s super PAC, Scott Reed, met with high-level executives at a Hawaiian defense contractor called Navatek to boost fundraising for the campaign. Collins had a history with Navatek, having awarded it a multimillion-dollar naval research contract in Maine. During the meeting, Reed and Navatek CEO Martin Kao agreed to a deal in which Collins would award more federal contracts to Navatek in exchange for a $150,000 check to the Collins super PAC. According to a report in The New York Times in 2022, Kao pleaded guilty to allegations of bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. However, the FBI quietly dropped the investigation last year, which is unsurprising given the current political climate. It is unclear how this affects Collins, but this certainly smells like bribery.