Amazon Bid Protest on JEDI Claims 'Improper Pressure' From Trump

By John D. McKinnon 

WASHINGTON -- Amazon.com Inc. said President Trump exerted "improper pressure" on the Pentagon to keep a lucrative cloud-computing deal from going to his perceived political enemy, company founder Jeffrey Bezos.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, Amazon said the president "launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks" on the contract and the company to steer the contract away from Amazon. Mr. Trump's aim was "to harm his perceived political enemy -- Jeffrey P. Bezos," according to the complaint, which was made public Monday.

Amazon was long considered the favorite to win the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract, which is valued at as much as $10 billion over the next decade.

Mr. Trump on July 19 called for an investigation of the Pentagon contract, before the award. "I'm getting tremendous complaints about the contract with the Pentagon and Amazon," Mr. Trump told reporters at the time. "I will be asking them to look very closely to see what's going on."

The Defense Department investigated and cleared Amazon of conflict-of-interest allegations, but it nonetheless ruled in the end that Microsoft Corp. was more qualified for the job.

In congressional testimony, a top Pentagon technology official, Dana Deasy, has denied that Mr. Trump or the White House influenced the JEDI selection process.

Write to John D. McKinnon at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 09, 2019 10:47 ET (15:47 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.