3 min read

Back in 2019, I received many invitations to head to UMaine to see a nifty new boat created by the world’s largest 3D printer. 

How I wish I’d gone.

That outing might have provided a clue that while Sen. Susan Collins does haul truckloads of federal cash to Maine, it comes with a price.

As a shocking and deft investigation by ProPublica this week showed, the company behind the boat, a little-known Hawaiian venture named Navatek, got Collins’ help after its top executive wrote a $150,000 check to a super PAC helping Collins with her 2020 reelection bid.

At the boat unveiling event in 2019, Collins and other dignitaries saw “a 25-foot patrol boat with a hull form developed by Navatek, a leader in ship design and a UMaine Composites Center industrial partner” in 3D printing the 5,000-pound vessel.

Collins told the crowd, “Just think of the implications for our military if they could print two prototypes of new, fast boats. I know Navatek is working on that right now. That’s going to be good for both taxpayers as well as our military service members who will ultimately benefit from this technology.”

Except that wasn’t the case. The project, funded by a budget provision pushed by Collins, may have helped UMaine and Navatek — but didn’t mean anything to our Navy, the ostensible beneficiary.

Drop by the Corner Bakery on Capitol Hill and you can pick up an Uptown Turkey-Avocado Sandwich served on ‘Harvest Toast’ for $13.49.

But going there can prove a lot more costly if you’re angling to get help from Collins.

Two months after the lunch, the super PAC boss, Scott Reed, told Navatek officials that Collins would get the company $32 million in Navy contracts, according to the nonprofit news organization, which said it reviewed a trove of emails and legal documents.

A cheap lunch led to millions of taxpayer dollars for a shady contractor that ultimately had little to offer the Navy. Collins raked in hundreds of thousands to promote her campaign. Par for the course in the nation’s capital, perhaps, but it stinks.

We’ve known for years that Navatek ran a crooked operation — its former CEO is in federal prison — and that it had ties to Collins.

What ProPublica added to the tale are stunning details that paint Collins and her staff as in on the action and the confirmation the FBI had launched an investigation into her connections to Navatek — an investigation that died when President Trump took office and he fired nearly everyone who had a hand in it.

Collins’ camp insists the five-term senator did nothing wrong. Her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson, said Collins’ actions as chronicled by ProPublica amounted to “corruption of the highest order.”

Trump arguably does much worse in full view of the public nearly every day. 

Suddenly, though, we have a plausible explanation for the reluctance of Maine’s senior senator to stand up to Trump’s tyrannical moves: The president protected her reputation by eliminating personnel behind the FBI probe. At most, he may have shielded Collins from facing federal criminal charges.

Everybody, and that includes Sen. Collins, should agree that further investigation is needed now.