William Turton is the Pro Publica investigative reporter who released a report this week alleging that Sen. Susan Collins and several members of her staff engaged in an elaborate conspiracy to funnel defense appropriations money into a federal contractor in return for campaign contributions. He joins us on The Robinson Report to talk about the credibility of his primary source for the story — convicted fraudster and serial liar Martin Kao — as well as what readers are to make of the Federal Elections Commission and the FBI under Joe Biden dropping the case. Turton defends his report and insists sources he communicated with attested to the credibility of both Kao and unnamed FBI agents familiar with the probe. Also today: Sen. Susan Collins spoke with Maine Wire TV outside an event in Gorham, directly responding to the allegations leveled against her and her office staff in the Pro Publica report. You can watch a clip of that interview below. Get the best news from around New England and support investigative journalism by subscribing today to The Robinson Report! RUSH TRANSCRIPT: Steve Robinson: Today we are joined by William Turton, who is an investigative reporter from ProPublica. Earlier this week, ProPublica dropped a investigative news piece that has rocked Washington D.C. and has mixed up the Maine Senate race between U.S. Senator Susan Collins and former State Senate President Troy Jackson. I’ll let—I’ll let Turton explain the story, but we’ll get into it here. Ask him some questions about his reporting, so the people of Maine can learn a little bit more about a piece of reporting that Troy Jackson thinks is going to turn the tables in this U.S. Senate election. So, without further ado, here’s our interview with William Turton. William, thank you very much for joining us. You’re obviously the author of an investigative news report that I think rocked Washington D.C. Certainly, Maine politics. As a, you know, a fellow reporter, I can certainly sympathize with the adrenaline rush that comes with dropping a report like that. So I bet it’s an exciting time for you, and you’re fielding lots of interview inquiries. And I think probably the best part to—the best place to start is just to give us the, you know, the Reader’s Digest version of the story. It was a long story. There’s lots of moving parts. It’s kind of complicated, and, you know, the average reader’s attention span is about 15 seconds these days. So, just explain to us the—the crux of the story that you reported on this Martin Cow guy who is currently sitting in federal prison, and donations that he made to United States Senator Susan Collins and a pack that was run in support of her. William Turton — 01:43 Yeah, and thanks so much for having me. Yeah, the best way to explain it in brief is sort of like a two-part story, right? So there’s one part, which is about a Hawaiian defense contractor, which is owned by—previously owned by this guy named Martin Cow and Susan Collins, and, you know, to give a little bit of history, Navitec, this company, relied on Daniel Inouye, the legendary senator from Hawaii, to receive appropriations for the company so that they could do research for the Navy. And anyway, died in 2012, and that kind of set the company on this path, where Martin had to figure out a new way to get congressional appropriations to fund the company’s research. And so, what they do is they develop this strategy of targeting senators who sit on the Appropriations Committee, and they’re actually extremely successful. And one of the senators that they focus on in their strategy is Senator Susan Collins. And so we report in our story that Martin, his family members, other members of, you know, top Navitec employees, start to make donations to Collins, and we report at the top of the story about this fateful meeting where Martin Kao and other company executives meet with the head of Susan Collins Super PAC, a man named Scott Reed, where they eventually hash out a deal, and Martin creates a shell company to give $150,000 to Collins’ campaign. Steve Robinson — 03:30 No, just hold on. When you say Susan Collins Super PAC, was this a—a political committee that she had started, or were—were her employees involved in it, or consulted? William Turton — 03:40 This is a separate pack, 1820 pack. Okay, it’s chaired by Scott Reed, who, as Susan Collins’ campaign manager said this week, is close friends with Susan Collins’ husband, Tom Daffron. Steve Robinson — 03:52 Okay. William Turton — 03:52 And so, so they—they make this deal to do this donation, and it’s through Shell Company. But a week later, according to an email we received, an employee or consultant, actually, of the pack, reaches out and says, “We’d like to get Martin’s phone number so that Susan Collins can call him and thank him.” And then two months after that, Martin writes to other Navitec executives and says that they met with Collins and that they secured $32 million in funding. It was an excellent meeting, and they were very warmly received. So that’s part one, right? But then part two, that’s kind of going concurrently, is—is an FBI investigation, right? So Martin— Steve Robinson — 04:32 Well, just before we get to the FBI investigation, did—when did the $32 million appropriation Cal referenced in his email come through, and was that—was that tied to the University of Maine? William Turton — 04:44 So they didn’t end up getting the $32 million. You know, the exact reason why, we don’t know—know, but okay. Steve Robinson — 04:52 So Cal—so cow—cow said basically what he said was false in the email. William Turton — 05:00 Well, shortly after they made this donation, everything kind of blew up, right? The—the shell company was very quickly exposed because it was incredibly sloppy, right? A good governance group noticed it and reported it to the FEC, and there was almost immediate scrutiny, like mere months after they had facilitated this donation. Steve Robinson — 05:22 And this was back in 2019, 2020? William Turton — 05:25 Late 2019 and early 2020. Yes. Steve Robinson — 05:28 Okay, so the FCC investigated at the time the pattern of straw donations from Tao and his family’s associates. William Turton — 05:35 Yeah, from what I understand, the FCC kind of just really scratched the surface. Right, they looked at this pack. They looked at the donation, but, you know, I don’t know whether they examined the entire kind of scheme of the ongoing relationship with Colin’s office, and the, you know, I don’t know the extent of the FEC investigation. So yeah— Steve Robinson — 06:00 When you say that they just scratched the surface, though, is that just based on a hunch because they didn’t find what you reported on, or do you—were there sources at FCC who said, “Yeah, we investigated this, but just kind of, you know, gave it a leaving alone”? Because I understand that there was a—an FEC commissioner who posted a message on X responding to it, saying, “I was a commissioner at the time, we looked. We looked at this. There was nothing there.” So, did you have sources saying otherwise at the Federal Election Commission who could speak to the nature of the investigation into those straw donations? William Turton — 06:33 So, obviously, you know, as you know, as a journalist, I can’t talk about confidential sources. But my understanding is that the FBI investigation went on for much, much longer than the FEC investigation did, and it was much more in depth and covered a wider scope of Cal Navitec’s relationship with Collins. Steve Robinson — 06:51 Okay, but yeah, I understand the FBI investigation separate from that, but I didn’t know whether you were just making a judgment about the FCC based on your—your—you’re talking about as a political observer, or based on something you’d found in your reporting. William Turton — 07:07 You’re—you’re talking about the Federal Election Commission, right? Steve Robinson — 07:10 Yes, yes. William Turton — 07:11 Yeah, you know, I—I—our story doesn’t really focus on FEC’s investigation. We’re chiefly focused on allegations of criminal bribery, and, you know, less so on mere campaign finance violations. Steve Robinson — 07:24 Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Sorry for the—the sidetracking. But now, so the second part of the story is the FBI investigation that you reported on. So yeah, I guess tell us—tell us, you know, what your reporting was on the nature of the FBI investigation. William Turton — 07:41 Sure, sure. So, so as I explained earlier, they’re kind of working this scheme of targeting appropriators. I mean, it’s going really well for them. They’re seeing huge success. They’re projecting huge growth. I mean— Steve Robinson — 07:53 I’m sorry, sorry to interrupt again, but you say that they’re having huge success. How is that measured? How is it, like, who says it’s going to get 10s of millions of dollars— William Turton — 08:02 In—in appropriations from not just Collins but other senators around the country, right? And their revenue is going up according to internal documents that we got, and they projected that they could go from $40 million to $100 million in the next year based on the sort of appropriations they were targeting. Steve Robinson — 08:19 So their—their strategy was successful with other senators, but the 30 million that Cow said in the email he had secured never actually materialized because of subsequent investigations. William Turton — 08:29 No, they—they got at least 10 million of that. Steve Robinson — 08:31 Okay, yeah. William Turton — 08:33 So, so just to back up, so as I’m explaining, they’re—they’re running the scheme and targeting appropriators, but at the same time, Cow is, like, incredibly sloppy, right? So they do this slop
