Democracy Dies in Darkness

After Trump cites Amazon concerns, Pentagon reexamines $10 billion JEDI cloud contract process

August 1, 2019 at 5:43 p.m. EDT
Defense Secretary Mark Esper gestures as he listens to President Trump speak during a ceremony for Esper at the Pentagon on Sunday. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

The White House has instructed newly installed Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper to reexamine the awarding of the military’s massive cloud-computing contract because of concerns that the deal would go to Amazon, officials close to the decision-making process said.

The 11th-hour Oval Office intervention comes just weeks before the winning bid was expected to be announced and has now left a major military priority up in the air, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door process freely. As recently as Sunday, the Defense Department defended its plans to move ahead with a single company for what is known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, a $10 billion contract that would be one of the government’s most expensive information technology procurements ever.