Susan Collins’s Committee Bought Trucks the Army Didn’t Want. Then Campaign Donations Poured In.

Susan Collins’s Committee Bought Trucks the Army Didn’t Want. Then Campaign Donations Poured In.

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Susan Collins’s Committee Bought Trucks the Army Didn’t Want. Then Campaign Donations Poured In.

Appropriations committee members saw an influx of campaign contributions after steering $345 million to a military contractor.



Matt Sledge, Jorge Medellín

October 5 2026, 5:48 a.m. ET

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!Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, responds to reporters after the confirmation hearing for Heidi Overton, President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, responds to reporters after the confirmation hearing for Heidi Overton, Trump's pick to lead the FDA, in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 24, 2026. Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The U.S. Army announced last year that it had enough of a specific model of armored vehicle and that any more deliveries would be “excess.” But even so, Congress found a way to keep funding alive for the vehicle — and executives at the company that produces the vehicle found a way to flood key members of Congress with campaign donations.

In the weeks after this year’s appropriations bill passed, employees of AM General or its parent company donated tens of thousands to key appropriations committee members in both chambers, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif.

Collins is separately facing scrutiny over a report from ProPublica that the FBI investigated an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving a major donor, an ex-defense contractor. Collins’ office denied that there was any kind of pay-to-play arrangement and said she fully cooperated with the FBI. There is no indication that AM General’s donations were part of such a scheme, but the giving nonetheless demonstrates how Collins’s campaign account has grown with help from employees at defense contractors doing business with the government.

Before the Army put the future of the vehicle in jeopardy, Collins was not a frequent beneficiary of contributions from the company’s workers. She last received campaign funds from AM General or its parent company’s employees more than a decade ago. But after the Army’s “excess” announcement last year, employees and the company’s PAC donated over $58,000 to committees associated with Collins.

One observer of money in politics said that appropriators receiving money from government contractors is a long-standing problem.

> “Government contractors today routinely try to leverage a broken campaign finance system to their advantage.”

“Members of the appropriations committees in Congress are extremely powerful. These lawmakers can steer huge sums of money to private companies. Government contractors today routinely try to leverage a broken campaign finance system to their advantage,” said Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One.

The revival of the Army’s order was supported by lawmakers in both parties, including the top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn. Collins’s office said that in the Senate, decisions on the program were made not by her but by defense subcommittee chair Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and vice chair Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. McConnell did not receive donations from employees at AM General or its parent company this election cycle. Coons received $2,500 from its employee PAC.

“Sen. Collins was not involved in this decision. The final decision was made by the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittees,” said a Collins spokesperson, Phoebe Keller.

AM General’s CEO, John Chadbourne, said in an email that the company does not comment on campaign donations, “all of which fully comply with FEC rules and regulations.”

He added, “AM General’s focus is on the Warfighter and providing the best light tactical vehicle capabilities to the Joint Forces.”

Congress Steps In

AM General is most famous for producing the Humvee, the iconic military vehicle that trawled the streets of Baghdad during the Iraq War. In 2023, the Army selected the company to produce 20,000 units of a more heavily armored successor known as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. The company was ramping up its production line in Indiana when then-Army Secretary Dan Driscoll announced in May 2025 that he would cancel its order, saying the additional deliveries would result in an “excess.”

Driscoll’s announcement was part of a larger effort to “eliminate waste and obsolete programs.”

“Yesterday’s weapons will not win tomorrow’s wars,” he said.

The military does not always have the last say on its contracts, however.

Congress has for decades swooped in to save pricey programs with political appeal. Soon after the Army moved to kill the vehicle contract, Congress mobilized to save it.

AM General had backing from members of Congress in Indiana, thanks to the jobs on its production line there. It also found backing from legislators in states far from its home.

The House moved first: In June 2025, the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on defense proposed spending hundreds of millions on the vehicle for the Army. By the time the final version of the defense spending bill passed this February, the Army had been provided with $345 million for procurement of a vehicle it said it did not need.

A joint statement from the House and Senate, which Collins’ office said was produced by the defense subcommittees, sounded a skeptical note about the Army’s decision to cancel further orders of the vehicle. The statement said that the Army had provided “inadequate supporting analysis.” One concern was that without the efficiencies from a larger order that included the Army, the cost-per-unit price of vehicles that the Marines still wanted would rise.

McCollum, the House Democrat with an influential role in the process, said in a statement that she was one of numerous members of Congress to question the Army’s decision.

“Appropriators felt the Army failed to do adequate due diligence to justify their rash budget decision to cut the JLTV program and explain the full impacts on the Army, and especially the Marine Corps, which had not been consulted,” she said.

By the time the final version of the defense spending bill passed this February, the Army had been provided with $345 million for procurement of a vehicle it said it did not need.

Collins’s campaign committees had received some money after the Army announced that it wanted to cancel the project.

In the weeks after Congress passed the appropriations bill on February 3, Collins and one of her counterparts in the House, Rep. Ken Calvert, both received a burst of donations from AM General employees and the company’s political action committee.

After the appropriations bill went through, donors associated with AM General gave a total of $50,000 to Collins’s fundraising committees.

The donors included Chadbourne, the company’s CEO, and two of KPS Capital’s managing partners. (Private equity firm KPS Capital Partners acquired AM General in 2020.) All gave money to a committee raising money on Collins’s behalf at the end of February or start of March.

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Calvert, the California representative with the defense appropriations post, has also benefited from similar donations. Both AM General employees and KPS Capital employees h