In May 2023, the Pentagon’s shiny new fighter jet was not looking so shiny or new.
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jet → look → May
Already a decade late and nearly $200 billion over its original cost estimate, the F-35 program faced a new crisis.
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program → face → crisis
An internal government watchdog report detailed a cascade of new problems with the program, which was in a period of flux amid plans to upgrade the jet’s engine and cooling system.
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which → detail → system
The report from the Government Accountability Office criticized the Pentagon for lumping those upgrades in with the overall purchase of the planes.
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report → criticize → planes
Conflating the two, the authors said, would limit congressional insight into cost increases.
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authors → conflate → increases
And they criticized the contractors behind the aircraft for failing to deliver the F-35 in a timely manner.
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they → criticize → manner
For Lockheed Martin, the main defense giant overseeing the development of the F-35, the timing was far from ideal.
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timing → oversee → F-35
In a few weeks, Congress was set to debate the Pentagon’s mammoth budget — and with it, new funding for the military’s purchase of F-35 jets.
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Congress → set → jets
So Lockheed and its lobbyists went on a charm offensive in Washington.
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Lockheed → go → Washington
The weapons maker shelled out hundreds of thousands over a two-month period, in what the money-in-politics watchdog Open Secrets described as “one of the largest coordinated lobbying efforts” around that year’s military budget.
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watchdog → shell → budget
No member of Congress benefited more than Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who at the time served as the ranking member on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
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who → benefit → Subcommittee
The donations were outliers during that period: Collins was among the largest recipients of Lockheed cash; the company was her largest single donor over those two months; and it was the largest spending blitz on Collins by Lockheed compared to the same period in other years.
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it → compare → years
The effort appeared to pay off for Lockheed.
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effort → appear → Lockheed
In July 2023, less than two months after the release of the Government Accountability Office report, Collins voted in favor of appropriating funds to purchase 83 new F-35 jets.
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Collins → vote → jets
Later that year, when the final version of the military budget was signed into law, Collins celebrated the economic boon she said it would bring to the state of Maine.
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it → sign → Maine
In response to questions from The Intercept, Phoebe Keller, a spokesperson for the Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee, said Collins’s support for the jet had nothing to do with donations from Lockheed or any other firm.
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support → control → Lockheed
“The F-35 jet program is a longstanding bipartisan defense priority,” Keller said.
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Keller → say → ?
“Sen. Collins has always publicly supported the F-35 jet program, as dozens of both Republican and Democratic Senators.”
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Collins → support → Senators
Collins’s position on the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee likely played a role in the outsized donations, according to analyst Dan Grazier.
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position → play → Grazier
And Collins, for her part, would have good reason to approve the spending: The F-35 program, Lockheed claims, has had a nine-figure economic impact in Maine.
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Lockheed → have → Maine
In the final weeks of the biggest fight of her political career against Democratic challenger Troy Jackson, fresh scrutiny on Collins’s donations from defense contractors has become a sore spot for her campaign.
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scrutiny → become → campaign
In some cases, the senator’s interactions with defense firms are the routine for Washington: glad-handing, lobbying, contributions, and directing pork-barrel spending back home.
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interactions → direct → spending
Last month, a bombshell report in ProPublica detailed an FBI investigation into an alleged pay-to-play scheme.
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report → detail → scheme
A former defense contractor claimed to federal agents that he worked with figures tied to Collins to disguise campaign donations — and got federal contracts totaling $32 million in return.
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he → claim → return
(The FBI probe fizzled after Trump returned to office and purged the bureau; Collins denied wrongdoing, pushing back on elements of the report.)
On Wednesday, more than 250 Mainers signed a letter to the state’s attorney general asking the official to investigate the allegations of corruption, according to Maine Morning Star, a local news outlet.
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Mainers → fizzle → Star
And earlier this month, The Intercept reported on donations from another defense contractor, AM General, and its parent company, whose employees gave $58,000 to fundraising committees associated with Collins after a damning assessment from the Army put its federal contracts in jeopardy.
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assessment → report → jeopardy
As with the AM General donations, the contributions by employees and lobbyists of Lockheed Martin do not indicate wrongdoing by Collins or her donors.
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contributions → indicate → Collins
They instead illuminate how companies that garner lucrative contracts zero in on powerful members of Congress, who often tout the benefits to their states.
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who → illuminate → states
“This is an example of what’s wrong with our approach to buying weapons,” said William Hartung, an analyst who has written critically of defense spending and influence peddling in Washington.
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who → ’ → Washington
“If we buy things because they’re in the state of a powerful member, we’re not going to have a coherent arsenal.”
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we → buy → arsenal
Collins was not the only member of Congress to push for funding the F-35, which enjoyed broad bipartisan support — especially from lawmakers with eligible firms and facilities in their states.
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which → push → states
And she was not the only one to benefit from the largesse of Lockheed Martin.
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she → benefit → Martin
From May 1 to June 30, 2023, Lockheed’s corporate PAC doled out $421,000 in a bipartisan blitz to various campaign political action committees, campaign funds, state parties, and charitable foundations.
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PAC → dole → committees
(Aside from 2024, the year of the presidential election, contributions in that two-month period in 2023 eclipsed subsequent years.
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contributions → eclipse → years
In the same period this year, Lockheed’s corporate PAC made 128 donations totaling $236,000; last year, it gave $286,000 across 158 donations during the same period.
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it → make → period
Collins was by far the biggest single beneficiary of the influx of cash — which came at a time when she was not actively campaigning.
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she → come → time
And, unlike the donations spread out to other campaign committees, the cash going from Lockheed into Collins’s coffers during those months came exclusively in the form of individual donations by employees and executives, including the firm’s CEO and chief operating officer, data from the Federal Election Commission shows.
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data → spread → Commission
Lobbyists working for Lockheed contributed another $5,000 to Collins during that period, and corporate PACs for Lockheed’s lobbying firms shelled out another $5,500 total, according to FEC disclosures.
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PACs → work → disclosures
Among individual contributions by Lockheed employees, donations to Collins made up more than 10 percent of all donations during the two-month period surrounding the watchdog report.
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donations → make → report
Only the firm’s in-house employee PAC, which received 75 percent of all employee donations, took in more from figures tied to Lockheed.
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which → receive → Lockheed
…and 59 more, not listed.
The Aporia
