The FBI sought court permission for a search warrant to investigate whether a Hawaii defense contractor illegally donated thousands of dollars to Sen. Susan Collins’s campaign.
A search warrant application, which Axios reported on Tuesday was only recently unsealed, shows an FBI agent requested access to a hard drive to investigate the activities of Martin Kao, the former CEO of Navatek, which has since been renamed Martin Defense Group.
The document, filed in the Washington, D.C., District Court on April 7, laid out why investigators believed that Navatek used a shell organization to give $150,000 to a pro-Collins super PAC.
“The Collins for Sen. Campaign had absolutely no knowledge of anything alleged in the warrant,” a spokeswoman for the U.S. senator from Maine told the Washington Examiner in a statement. Nothing in the warrant indicates Collins or her staff were aware of the illegal contributions, according to Axios and the Washington Post.
Collins, a Republican, and her foremost Democratic competitor, former state Rep. Sara Gideon, raised nearly $105 million during the 2020 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org. The website reports that the 1820 PAC raised nearly $12 million for the 2020 cycle.
Also under investigation are Clifford Chen, who served as Navatek’s CFO, and Navatek itself, according to the search warrant application.
The application alleges Kao and his wife, Tiffany Jennifer Lam, set up an LLC called the Society for Young Women Scientists and Engineers that they then used to send money to a pro-Collins super PAC called the 1820 PAC.
On Dec. 26, 2019, Lawrence Lum Kee, then Navatek’s Hawaii-based controller, sent a check for $150,000 from Navatek to the LLC, according to the application, which cited reviewed documents. The next day, the LCC allegedly gave the 1820 PAC $150,000.
“Martin Kao, Clifford Chen, and Lawrence ‘Kahele’ Lum Kee are no longer employees of the Company,” the Martin Defense Group (formerly Navatek) said in a statement to the Washington Examiner, adding it was “fully cooperating with the government investigation.”
Records indicate that Kao also reimbursed a series of family members and friends in July and September of 2019 for maxed-out donations to Collins’s campaign for Senate, according to the application.
The donations took place right around the same time the defense firm was granted a lucrative government contract.
“Federal government contractors are prohibited from making contributions or expenditures in connection with federal elections,” the Federal Election Commission states. Straw donations, or making a donation in the name of someone else, are also illegal under federal law.
In August 2019, the senator’s office announced Navatek had received an $8 million contract from the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research.
“As a senior member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, I strongly advocated for the funding that made this research possible and am so proud of the work Navatek and other Maine industries do to support our Navy and our nation’s defense,” Collins said in a statement.
Axios reported on the suspicious $150,000 transaction in January, linking it to the Society for Young Women Scientists and Engineers as well as Kao’s wife. The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC on the matter in October.
“In keeping with DOJ standard practice, we neither confirm nor deny an investigation. We do not have any further comment,” an FBI spokesperson told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
On Sept. 30, the Justice Department announced Kao had been charged with two counts of bank fraud and five counts of money laundering for allegedly fraudulently obtaining more than $12.8 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Kao’s attorney in that case for comment but did not immediately hear back.
