Amazon on Monday accused President Donald Trump of exerting “improper pressure” and bias that led the Department of Defense to award a lucrative $10 billion cloud contract to rival Microsoft, Reuters informs.
In a complaint filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Amazon said Trump launched “repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer” the Pentagon cloud contract called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, popularly known as JEDI, away from Amazon Web Services.
The heavily redacted complaint said Trump’s motive was to “harm his perceived political enemy-Jeffrey P. Bezos, founder and CEO of AWS’s parent company, Amazon.com…and owner of the Washington Post.”
Trump’s interference made it impossible for the Pentagon to judge a winner “reasonably, consistently, an in a fair and equal manner,” Amazon said.
The President has long criticized Bezos and Amazon over low tax payments and accused the Washington Post of acting as a lobbyist for Bezos and Amazon and spreading “fake news”, Reuters adds.
The company called for a reevaluation of the proposals submitted to the Pentagon and a new award decision, Reuters added.
“The question is whether the President of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends,” the 103-page complaint said.
Be the first to comment