If you are a forest ranger, you know smoke. If you’re a lobsterman, you know pressure. If you’re an oversight investigator with subpoena power, you know fraud. As a five-year investigator, my job was hunting fraud at Justice, State, and Defense. Maine’s recent audit reveals systemic Democrat corruption.

The deep-dive audit of Maine’s government – operations, contracting, management, and political behavior – released in April, is not going away. It is not “embarrassing” or something “to be addressed,” as the Portland Press Herald suggests. It is a revelation: The Maine Government is corrupt.

This is not a small thing. The audit indicates Maine’s Democrat-controlled government has been cheating Maine taxpayers, knowingly, blatantly, and criminally. They have let sole-source contracts to friends and “family,” stacking small contracts to avoid reporting, and ripped off taxpayers for years.

How much is involved? At least 2.1 billion dollars. Is that a big deal? Yes, a very big deal. Ten years ago, before Democrats offered this year’s $11.7 billion biennial budget, with unfunded mandates, no second year for Mainecare, new taxes, and a $450 million deficit, that was a full year’s budget.

What Democrats have done, in a shocking abuse of power, is misappropriate state taxpayer earnings, giving them to themselves, friends, and family, administratively and legislatively.

The scope of corruption is enormous, suggesting that more exists, allowed by a government in power for nearly 30 years, with no meaningful oversight, accountability, or integrity. Crime occurs – corruption in the public sector, something I have fought for years – when no one cares or looks.

That has happened in Maine. Citizens assume the best, but efforts by journalists to find the truth have been stiff-armed, Freedom of Information (FOIA) Requests delayed, the oversight process corrupted, hijacked, and overcome by politics. Kudos to Matt Dunlap and his team. They speak the truth.

So, what exactly did this audit of processes that begin with Maine’s strident, freewheeling, even vindictive Democrat legislature and end at State Procurement – discover? Truths worth knowing.

Despite efforts by a largely unified, seemingly apologetic Maine media to minimize the findings, like a political actor downplaying a whistleblower’s revelations, facts are themselves undeniable.

Despite laws meant to prevent abuse – where is the Maine AG? – Contracts were given away without cost analysis, without being competed, to friends, family, and none of that money clawed back. No oversight, no controls, all known to Democrats.

In a state that lets 8,000 service contracts annually, investigators got their hands on 45, found more than half were “sole source,” non-competed, went to one party, no documentation, no questions. Odd? Profoundly. No federal agency, even in one-party times, had that percentage of sole source.

Shockingly – and I do mean shockingly – some contracts were just given away, paid with no oversight, retroactively awarded “sole source.” Imagine laws said, “find the most economical way for Mainers,” but you gave it to a friend, papered it with a fake contract. Criminal? Sure sounds it.

Imagine the law said, no contract can be given out if over $35,000, absent reporting. To avoid reporting, you knew the Governor, AG, and others would let you “stack” or break the contract into seven pieces, each just $5000. Criminal? Sure sounds that way.

Imagine now that the audit itself was a CYA – Cover Your Ass – effort, revealing enough to get folks to say, “Oh my, let’s fix that, but nothing to see here.” Maybe so, maybe not, but this is big. Note that none of the contractors who did these things, and none of the government people, were named.

Why is that? Surely the names were not omitted to “protect the innocent.” Think. Despite laws insisting that “fair prices” be secured for taxpayers, no effort was made. Political actors quietly resign. No one talks about it in mainstream papers – or what is left of them in Miane – and life goes on.

Let me tell you a secret, as a Maine attorney, former top investigator, intelligence officer, and pursuer of truth: Where there is smoke, there is fire. When you feel pressure falling, you face a storm. When an audit shows corruption, dig deeper, dig harder, keep digging: There is corruption.

Maine is in peril from many sources: drugs, organized crime, excessive budgets and taxes, no affordability, and a collapsing education system, but the biggest threat is systemic Democrat corruption. Mark my words, as an investigator, this is a dark day, and more is to be found.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).