Ed Kilgore: “The perpetually turbulent U.S. Senate contest in Maine took another turn on Tuesday when ProPublica reported that in 2019, Susan Collins was investigated by the FBI for a rather gross act of corruption but the probe later fell apart after the agency was purged by Trump.”

“It’s a long, complex story, but basically ProPublica found that an FBI investigation had linked an especially shady Hawaii-based defense contractor to Collins’s 2020 reelection bid. There was definitely a quid (contributions to a super-PAC backing the Maine senator) and a quo (designated defense contracts that only the company in question could perform), but Collins’s office has categorically denied there was a pro, a corrupt connection between the two. The allegations, as a Collins staffer has pointed out, were based largely on evidence supplied by the alleged briber in question, who is now in federal prison.”

“My purpose here is not to litigate the claims against Collins and her operatives, beyond observing that ProPublica has a very strong record for getting its facts right before pointing fingers. But the larger question is whether Maine voters, who in six weeks must determine whether Collins or Democrat Troy Jackson will represent them in the Senate, actually care if the incumbent is corrupt.”