Not long ago, the good folks at ProPublica dropped a rock on the head of Senator Susan Collins in regards to her alleged relationship with one Martin Kao, the CEO of a defense contracting firm called Navatek, and some arguable influence peddling. Now, a second rock has dropped, and the collateral damage is much, much worse.
On March 3, 2020, Sen. Lindsey Graham walked into a private dining room at Charlie Palmer Steak in Washington, D.C. Graham’s time was expensive. He was meeting with two executives and a lobbyist from a Hawaiian naval defense contractor called Navatek. And he had required them to commit to $40,000 in campaign contributions for a 45-minute meeting.
Navatek’s CEO, Martin Kao, was confident that was all the time he needed. “Shoot all he has to really do is stop by and say ‘yes,’” Kao wrote to a Navatek lobbyist and a fellow executive the day before, in an email seen by ProPublica. “That should only take a minute and he’s on his way. We don’t need to pretend we give a shit about each other.”
And people say politics is a cynical business.
Anyway, it appears that Kao had a regular table at this steakhouse, and there's nothing more old-school Washington than subletting government officials at a steakhouse.
In early 2025, the FBI opened a sweeping investigation into bribery on Capitol Hill with Graham’s steakhouse dinner at the center. Kao confessed to federal agents that his business model consisted of bribing public officials in exchange for government contracts, and that the research Navatek was providing to the government was often worthless. The scheme involved some of the most powerful figures in Congress, he said—in both parties. In South Carolina, Kao told agents, Navatek made a campaign cash-for-contracts deal not only with Graham, but also with the state’s top Democrat, Rep. James Clyburn, and another influential Republican, Rep. Joe Wilson.
Alas for the investigators, the American people elected the current president again and, suddenly, mysteriously, the White House considered the FBI's pursuit of public corruption to be a luxury we can't afford.
President Donald Trump returned to the White House and almost immediately gutted the specialized FBI and Department of Justice teams dedicated to taking on public corruption—an act of revenge for having previously investigated him. The two experienced agents on the case were swept up in the purge, and the career prosecutor assisting them quit after Trump appointees forbid the DOJ’s anti-corruption section from filing any new cases. Today, there is no one left to look into Kao’s explosive allegations, as the Trump administration has abandoned any pretense of prosecuting public corruption. The case is dead.
Except the evidence compiled apparently is turning up on ProPublica for our dining and dancing pleasure. Except for that of Kao, who's the only principal currently enjoying institutional dining.
“[It’s] corruption at its best,” Kao wrote to ProPublica from federal detention in South Dakota, before cutting off contact. “But I am the only one rotting in prison.”
Remind me never to play musical chairs at Charlie Palmer Steak.