In recent months, Cramer has touted his preferred construction firm, North Dakota-based Fisher Industries, and campaign finance records show the senator has received thousands of dollars in contributions from company chief executive Tommy Fisher and his family members.

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Cramer put a temporary hold this week on the confirmation of Michael Wooten, a nominee for a senior post at the White House Office of Management and Budget. After Wooten was confirmed Thursday, Cramer lashed out at the Army Corps in private emails when he was told the contracting bids contain sensitive information.

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“This is a woefully inadequate response and not what I was promised by the White House as a condition for releasing my hold on the confirmation of the nominee for the Federal Procurement Officer,” Cramer wrote, copying others at OMB, the White House and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“The fact that you all claim secrecy without [citing] statute makes me very suspicious,” he wrote. “I have decided to stay in DC another day and would like to see General Semonite in my office tomorrow.”

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Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the top official at the Army Corps, went to Cramer’s office Friday to provide the senator with a private briefing. Cramer’s office released a statement afterward, vowing to hold the military engineers “accountable.”

“We received an update on wall construction and the bidding process, as well as a number of documents and the answers to questions we requested from the Army Corps,” the statement said. “I believe we have their attention and are in a position to succeed.”

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Trump has redirected $3.5 billion in Defense Department funds to the border project and promised to build 500 miles of barrier before the 2020 election. Cramer said the president has bestowed him with special responsibilities to oversee progress.

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“President Trump deputized Senator Cramer to work with the Army Corps to ensure their process is fair, transparent, and delivers the best possible deal for the American people,” Cramer’s statement read.

In an interview Friday with The Washington Post conducted via email, Cramer said he’d placed the hold on Wooten “to get the nominee to agree to reforming [the Army Corps] procurement process,” which the senator criticized for prioritizing technical specifications over cost. “If that doesn’t concern watchdogs nothing should,” Cramer wrote.

He dismissed claims the contracts contained private information unavailable to someone with the stature of a U.S. senator.

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“I can know where every submarine in the oceans are,” Cramer said in a separate email. “A simple non disclosure is sufficient for a member of Congress. The fact they won’t share it is concerning.”

“I don’t know what they are hiding,” he wrote.

An Army Corps spokesperson confirmed that Semonite met with Cramer on Friday but referred questions about the meeting to the senator’s office.

White House officials said they were aware Cramer had intervened to hold up Wooten’s nomination but they said they weren’t told about his connections to a specific company that has bid on border wall contracts.

Tommy Fisher and his wife gave at least $10,000 — the maximum allowable contribution — to Cramer in 2018 when he ran for Senate, records show. Fisher was Cramer’s guest at Trump’s State of the Union speech in February last year. The company chief executive said he shook Trump’s hand afterward. Fisher has also been a repeat guest on Fox News in recent months, where he has praised the border wall effort and promoted his firm.

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Senior White House officials said they have been aware for several months that Cramer had expressed a personal interest in how these bids were being awarded. Cramer told a North Dakota radio station in May that he had personally raised concerns about the bidding process with Trump and that Trump had said, perhaps jokingly, “I deputize you” to deal with it.

The North Dakota senator has repeatedly promoted Fisher, and Trump too has joined the effort, pitching the company in meetings at the White House and aboard Air Force One that have troubled miliary commanders and Department of Homeland Security officials.

They say it is highly unusual for a president to intervene on behalf of a private company seeking billions in federal contracts, and one of the reasons the Army Corps has long managed the procurement process is the military’s reputation for integrity and rectitude.

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Fisher Industries was hired by activist group We Build the Wall to install a span of steel bollard fencing this spring on private land west of El Paso. Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince and immigration hard-liner Kris Kobach are among the board members of the group, which says it has raised $25 million through private donations.

For Fisher, the project has been a showcase for what it says are innovative techniques that install the steel fencing faster and cheaper than its competitors. Despite Cramer’s efforts to influence and the president’s endorsement, Fisher was not picked by the Army Corps in recent rounds of bidding.

Fisher sued the government in April, alleging improprieties with the Army Corps procurement process.

During previous bids, the Army Corps said the company’s design did not meet its requirements and lacked regulatory approvals. DHS officials also told the Army Corps in March that Fisher’s work on a barrier project in San Diego came in late and over budget.