FBI Was Probing Lindsey Graham and James Clyburn for Bribery — Until Trump Purged the Agency

James Clyburn, left (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf) and Lindsey Graham, right
(AP Photo/Meg Kinnard, File)

President Donald Trump’s purge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation apparently saved a bipartisan pair of political legends from an official bribery probe.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) and U.S. Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) were allegedly entangled with a Hawaii defense contractor who offered bribes in exchange for government contracts, according to a bombshell Tuesday report from ProPublica.

It’s the second in a series from the nonprofit newsroom, which last month reported that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) had also been looked at by the feds in the potential bribery probe of contractor Martin Kao and his company, Navatek. Collins has denied wrongdoing.

Graham, who died suddenly in July at age 71, and legendary Democrat Clyburn, 86, each met with Kao, who was seeking millions in government contracts in 2020 and who ultimately donated thousands to each man’s campaign coffers, according to the outlet. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), an influential member of the House Armed Services Committee, also met with and got donations from Kao, according to the report.

Kao was sentenced in 2025 to 87 months in prison on fraud charges. An attorney for Kao could not immediately be reached for comment by Mediaite.

Kao met with Graham for 45 minutes in March 2020 at Washington D.C.’s Charlie Palmer Steakhouse, a sit-down secured with a $40,000 campaign contribution, ProPublica reported.

“Shoot all he has to really do is stop by and say ‘yes,’” Kao wrote in an email ahead of the meeting, a message which was obtained by the outlet. “That should only take a minute and he’s on his way. We don’t need to pretend we give a sh*t about each other.”

The senator allegedly agreed to direct a $10 million government deal toward Kao’s Navatek in exchange for a $100,000 campaign donation, according to the report:

Kao told agents that Graham in particular left little room for ambiguity: “This is how much I want, and how much I am going to give you,” Kao remembered Graham saying, according to notes one agent took during their debrief in late 2024.

Kao’s admissions would constitute a vast criminal bribery scheme if they could be proved in court — a challenge, given recent Supreme Court rulings that have made it more difficult to win corruption cases. Kao himself posed another hurdle. He was facing prison for fraud and campaign finance violations and was speaking to the FBI in the hopes of reducing his sentence.

But the FBI agents who took Kao’s confession — two experienced anti-corruption investigators — could see that much of it lined up with a trove of records they had seized from Navatek. They forged ahead. The FBI took the formal step of naming two former Navatek executives who had worked with Kao as subjects of a bribery investigation. The agency did not designate Graham, Clyburn and Wilson that way, but the agents were actively investigating their interactions with Kao. The agents indicated to their superiors that the lawmakers could become subjects in the future, according to records viewed by ProPublica.

But the FBI agents investigating Kao and those in government who dealt with him were fired when Trump returned to office in 2025 — and the probe died.

Reps for Graham and Clyburn — who allegedly got $20,000 in donations from Kao and his relatives, along with a Clyburn-favorite institution, the University of South Carolina getting $10,000 — denied wrongdoing.

“Any allegations of quid-pro-quo behavior or wrongdoing by the late Senator Lindsey Graham or his staff are simply false,” spokeswoman Taylor Reidy, who now works for Graham’s sister, Darline Graham, who was appointed to fill out his term, told ProPublica.

Reidy called the “ravings of a convicted felon,” noted that the FBI never contacted the office about the allegations and that Lindsey Graham later rejected the donations in question.

Reidy slammed ProPublica in a statement to Mediaite.

 “It’s embarrassing that ProPublica, a George Soros funded operation, is legitimizing the ravings of a convicted felon, Martin Kao, who clearly would have said anything to save himself. Adding insult to injury, ProPublica has chosen to publish this story when Senator Graham cannot defend himself because he tragically passed away in July.”

The University of South Carolina had identified the project it was working on with Navatek as a priority, Graham’s office added.

A rep for Clyburn was equally firm, telling ProPublica, “Whatever a donor may think or say, a donation would never cause Congressman Clyburn to increase his support for the donor’s request.”

In response to Kao’s claim that he donated to the University of South Carolina in a bid to satisfy Clyburn, the Congressman’s comms director Jami LaRue told ProPublica, “The Congressman has always striven to assist the University of South Carolina and all of the colleges and universities in his district when called upon to further their important missions. The crimes and lies of an imprisoned fraudster will not cause the Congressman to waver in his support for these fine institutions.”

Wilson’s rep also denied wrongdoing.

“Congressman Wilson does and has always abided by campaign donation regulations set forth by the Federal Election Commission,” Wilson’s Communications Director, David Snider, told ProPublica.

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