Anyone surprised with this?
I’m not….
Could a kickback be in this for anyone?
Hmmmm?
Trump isn’t about the government idea of competitive bidding one would assume?
President Trump has personally and repeatedly urged the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to award a border wall contract to a North Dakota construction firm whose top executive is a GOP donor and frequent guest on Fox News, according to four administration officials.
In phone calls, White House meetings and conversations aboard Air Force One during the past several months, Trump has aggressively pushed Dickinson, N.D.-based Fisher Industries to Department of Homeland Security leaders and Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the Army Corps, according to the administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions. The push for a specific company has alarmed military commanders and DHS officials.
Semonite was summoned to the White House again Thursday, after the president’s aides told Pentagon officials — including Gen. Mark Milley, the Army’s chief of staff — that the president wanted to discuss the border barrier. According to an administration official with knowledge of the Oval Office meeting, Trump immediately brought up Fisher, a company that sued the U.S. government last month after the Army Corps did not accept its bid to install barriers along the southern border, a contract potentially worth billions of dollars….
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Army Corps of Engineers officials evaluated Fisher’s proposal and said that it didn’t meet the requirements of the project — and that the proposal was cheaper because it wasn’t as high-quality, or as sophisticated, in their view.
Finally, officials, including then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, went into the Oval Office this spring and explained that Fisher could bid but that the company’s proposal needed to change.
Nielsen and Semonite separately explained that the president could not just pick a company. Nielsen did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump remained frustrated, saying that Fisher said it could build the barrier cheaper and faster. “He said these other guys were full of s—,” an official said.
Fisher was added to a pool of competitors after the Army Corps came under pressure from the White House, administration officials said.
On Tuesday, after Semonite was called to a meeting with Cramer on Capitol Hill, the senator posted a photograph of the encounter to Twitter, saying he had “discussed border wall construction” with Army Corps leaders.
Cramer said he was glad the president is so involved in the process. Trump was elected to cut through Washington’s entrenched bureaucracy, he said.
“Good for him. It’s why he is the president of the United States. He knows a thing or two about building big projects,” Cramer said. “This is why he’s president.”
Cramer said that he has long known the Fisher family and that he is not advocating for the company because its ownership has donated money to his campaigns.
Note…
Politicians in office who do this sort of thing get visits from the FBI….
But Donald Trump has been beating down the agency with Barr as HIS Attorney General…
There is no worry for him in doing this….
Not even from Congress….
Media light seems to work the best…