Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was hit with bombshell new reporting from ProPublica on Tuesday, dropping new details on how defense contractor CEO Martin Kao told FBI agents about a sprawling campaign cash bribery for contracts scheme involving her office and a number of other lawmakers — only for President Donald Trump to fire the agents investigating the matter as part of unrelated political vendettas.
In response, Collins’ deputy chief of staff Annie Clark posted a lengthy manifesto to X denying the story.
“The seven-year-old allegations made against Senator Collins and her staff in this piece are categorically false,” wrote Clark. “There have never been any allegations of wrongdoing by the Collins for Senator campaign, and the campaign was never the target of the FBI investigation. ProPublica took the word of someone who pled guilty to five counts of money laundering, three counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, and making false submissions to the FEC.” She went on to accuse Kao of fabricating claims against Collins to try to get a better deal.
Commenters on social media, though, weren’t buying it.
“Annie, we literally have the emails and the check. Your boss is (expletive)d,” wrote Maine commentator Anthony Emerson.
“Propublica did a hell of a lot more than just take the guy’s word,” wrote Matt Friedman of NJ Playbook. “The donations to the super PAC are documented. And they published emails between the donor and the head of the super PAC that discussed hiding the source of the money. Don’t insult our intelligence.”
“If you read this very long rejoinder, you see the only arguments it really makes are ‘the FBI didn’t prosecute,’ and ‘that guy is a criminal,’” wrote Democratic communications aide Isi Breen. “Not any actual rejection of the specific claims made in the article. Not that it matters anyway, cuz ProPublica has the email records!”
“Because as we all know, Susan Collins would never trust the word of a convicted felon,” wrote the account for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, posting a picture of Collins palling around with President Donald Trump.
“Would be a real shame if there turned out to be more that was going to come out soon and elements of this statement had to be walked back,” wrote Pat Dennis, head of the liberal group American Bridge.
The post ‘We literally have the emails!’ Susan Collins flak skewered for denying corruption story appeared first on Raw Story.
