May 2023, The Pentagon’s shiny new fighter jets don’t look so shiny or new.
The F-35 program, already a decade behind schedule and nearly $200 billion above original cost estimates, faces a new crisis. A report from an internal government watchdog details a series of new problems with the program, which comes at a precarious time for plans to upgrade jet engines and cooling systems.
The GAO report criticized the Pentagon for conflating these upgrades with the overall acquisition of the aircraft. The authors say conflating the two would limit Congress’ understanding of cost increases. They criticized the contractor behind the aircraft for failing to deliver the F-35 on time.
For Lockheed Martin, the main defense giant responsible for the development of the F-35, the timing is far from ideal. In a few weeks, Congress will discuss the Pentagon’s massive budget and new funding for the military to purchase F-35 jets.
Collins was the largest recipient of Lockheed cash during the period the inspector general’s report was released.
So Lockheed and its lobbyists launched a charm offensive in Washington. The arms maker spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over two months in what political money watchdog Open Secrets described as “one of the largest coordinated lobbying efforts” surrounding that year’s military budget.
No member of Congress benefited more than Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who at the time served as ranking member of the defense appropriations subcommittee.
Lockheed Martin employees and executives donated $59,500 to Collins’ campaign committee from May 1 to June 30, 2023. The donations during this period are unusual: Collins was one of the largest recipients of Lockheed cash; the company was her largest single donor during those two months; and compared with the same period in other years, it was Lockheed’s largest spending blitz against Collins.
Lockheed’s efforts appear to be paying off. In July 2023, less than two months after the Government Accountability Office report was released, Collins voted in favor of funding the purchase of 83 new F-35 jets. Later that year, when the final version of the military budget was signed into law, Collins celebrated the economic benefits she said it would bring to Maine.
Phoebe Keller, a spokesperson for the Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee, said in response to questions from The Intercept that Collins’ support for the plane had nothing to do with donations from Lockheed or any other company.
“The F-35 jet program is a long-standing bipartisan defense priority,” Keller said. “Senator Collins joins dozens of Republican and Democratic senators who have been vocal in their support of the F-35 jet program.”
Analyst Dan Glazier said Collins’ position on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee may have played a role in the huge donation. Collins, for her part, has good reason to approve the spending: Lockheed claims the F-35 program has had a nine-figure economic impact in Maine.
the battle for her political life
New scrutiny of Collins’ contributions to defense contractors has become a sore spot for her campaign in the final weeks of the biggest fight of her political career against Democratic challenger Troy Jackson.
In some cases, senators’ interactions with defense companies are routine in Washington: goodwill, lobbying, donations and directing domestic pork-barrel spending. But not all of them are standard.
Last month, an explosive report in ProPublica detailed an FBI investigation into an alleged pay-to-play scheme. A former defense contractor claimed to federal agents that he worked with people associated with Collins to conceal campaign contributions and received federal contracts totaling $32 million in return. (The FBI investigation collapsed after Trump returned to office and purged the bureau; Collins denied wrongdoing and disputed the contents of the report.)
On Wednesday, more than 250 Mainers signed a letter to the state’s attorney general asking the official to investigate corruption allegations, local news outlet The Maine Morning Star reported.
Earlier this month, The Intercept reported on donations from another defense contractor, AM General, and its parent company, whose employees donated $58,000 to Collins-related fundraising committees after a scathing Army review put its federal contracts in jeopardy.
As with AM General’s donations, the donations from Lockheed Martin employees and lobbyists do not indicate wrongdoing by Collins or his donors. Instead, they illuminate how the companies that received lucrative contracts were pennies on the dollar from powerful members of Congress who often touted favors to their states.
“This is an example of something wrong with the way we buy weapons,” said William Hartung, an analyst who has written articles critical of Washington’s defense spending and influence peddling. “If we buy things because they’re in a state of being a strong member, then we’re not going to have a coherent arsenal.”
Lockheed donation
Collins is not the only member of Congress pushing to fund the F-35, which has broad bipartisan support, especially from lawmakers in states with qualifying companies and facilities. She’s not the only one to benefit from Lockheed Martin’s generosity.
From May 1 to June 30, 2023, Lockheed’s PAC donated $421,000 to various campaign PACs, campaign funds, state parties and charitable foundations in a bipartisan blitz. (With the exception of the presidential election year of 2024, donations during the two-month period in 2023 exceeded those in subsequent years. During the same period this year, Lockheed’s PAC made 128 donations totaling $236,000; during the same period last year, the company gave $286,000 in 158 donations.)
Collins is by far the single largest beneficiary of the influx of cash — which occurred while she was not actively campaigning. And, unlike contributions dispersed to other campaign committees, the cash that flowed from Lockheed into Collins’ coffers in these months came entirely in the form of personal contributions from employees and executives, including the company’s CEO and chief operating officer, Federal Election Commission data show.
During May and June of that year, there were 60 donations of $1,000 or more, 56 of which went to Collins.
Lockheed lobbyists donated an additional $5,000 to Collins during that period, and the Lockheed lobbying firm’s corporate PAC paid a total of another $5,500, according to FEC disclosures.
Among individual donations from Lockheed employees, donations to Collins accounted for more than 10% of all donations during the two months since the regulator’s report was released.
Only the company’s internal employee PAC received more donations from figures related to Lockheed, with the agency receiving 75 percent of all employee donations. Collins received more than twice as much as the next-highest recipient, ActBlue, a Democratic-aligned fundraising vehicle that received 4% of all Lockheed employee donations during the same period, according to FEC data.
The vast majority of donations from Lockheed employees and officials were under $1,000. During May and June 2023, there were 60 donations of $1,000 or more, 56 of which went to Collins.
Nearly all employee donations from Lockheed employees and senior executives during Collins’ current tenure were made during that two-month period, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Lockheed’s donations accounted for a quarter of all donations during May and June 2023 to Collins’ main fundraising arm, the Collins Senatorial Campaign. It was followed by telecommunications giant Charter Communications, where employee donations accounted for just 8% of Collins campaign donations in the second quarter of fiscal 2023.
A Lockheed spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about the reason for the sudden influx of individual donations to Collins in 2023.
“Our employee PAC program continues to adhere to long-standing principles of bipartisan political engagement to support our business interests,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.
Another vehicle the Army doesn’t want
A similar pattern repeated itself two years later when a lesser-known defense company with questionable products received support from Collins on Capitol Hill.
Collins went out of his way last year to blast the Pentagon for canceling plans to buy robotic combat vehicles from Textron and subsidiary Howe & Howe, the developer of Maine-based Ripsaw.
Collins has repeatedly touted unmanned robotic combat vehicles in Senate hearings and official statements. On June 18, 2025, she disputed the fact that the vehicle had appeared in a recent military parade, but made no further cuts.
“It’s extremely ironic that you’re presenting this vehicle in a parade as the future of the Army and at the same time canceling a contract – canceling a contract that won over many other competitors,” Collins said. He described the decision as “very unfair and a real mistake.”
A month later, after the military budget passed the Senate Appropriations Committee, Collins singled out Howe & Howe and its plant in Waterboro, Maine, as a potential beneficiary of part of the $44 million allocated to the U.S. Marine Corps for amphibious and autonomous vehicles.
She repeated her praise for Howe & Howe after the 2026 military budget was signed into law in January. In May of this year, during testimony before Congress by then-Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, Collins once again accused the military of cutting back on the Rip Saw procurement program.
Textron Corp.’s PAC contributed a total of $4,000 to various PACs associated with Collins ahead of Collins’ vote on the 2026 military budget. The $3,000 gift arrived just days after Collins criticized the military for cutting plans for the Ripsaw project, which would have generated millions of dollars in revenue for Howe & Howe.
Later this year, the Textron Corp. PAC donated another $7,000 to Collins for the acquisition of the Senator and the Collins-linked Derigo PAC, according to FEC filings. (Spokespeople for Textron and Howe & Howe did not respond to requests for comment. Keller, a spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee, did not respond to questions about Textron and Howe & Howe’s donations.)
Meanwhile, FEC data show that between September 2025 and October 15, 2026, employees of Textron and its subsidiaries made contributions totaling nearly $15,000 to various Collins-related PACS.
Hartung, an analyst critical of military spending, said the donations were relatively small in campaign finance in the post-Citizens United era but still illustrated a troubling pattern of influence exerted in Washington.
“Many members are lobbying to get more things built in their states or to legislate systems that only their local companies can produce,” Hartung said. “Business as usual, but sometimes business as usual can do great harm.”