Steve Abbott
Role at the time: Campaign manager for Susan Collins
Denied
Statement summary
Collins campaign manager Steve Abbott points to a photo of Collins meeting Kao in her office months before any donation and says it shows that ProPublica's account, that Kao had to donate before he could see Collins, is not true.
“ProPublica has the theory that Martin Kao, based on Martin Kao's word, had to make a donation before he could get in to see Susan Collins. As you can see from that picture, it's not true”