Pentagon IG could not determine if White House interfered in cloud contract

The Pentagon’s watchdog in a report released on Wednesday said it was not able to “definitively determine” whether the White House influenced the Department of Defense’s (DOD) decision to award a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft over Amazon.

The department’s inspector general office said it was unable to rule on the issue because the DOD’s general counsel instructed witnesses not to answer questions about conversations between the White House and Pentagon because of “the assertion of a ‘presidential communications privilege.'”

The report did find, however, that department personnel who evaluated proposals and awarded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract were not pressured by any senior Pentagon leaders.

The 317-page document also determined that giving the JEDI contract to a single company — Microsoft — rather than dividing it among competitors was “consistent with applicable acquisition standards.”

The Pentagon awarded the lucrative military contract to Microsoft in October of last year.

Amazon quickly filed a lawsuit seeking to halt or overhaul the contract, claiming the process was improperly influenced by President Trump, who publicly and privately indicated that he did not want the contract to go to Amazon, which is owned by a frequent target of the president’s criticism, Jeff Bezos.