Amazon Loses Out on $10 Billion Pentagon Contract and Has Questions for Trump

It was last year that e-commerce giant Amazon lost out to Microsoft in a $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract and isn’t happy about it.

The company’s cloud computing arm wants to depose President Trump, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and former Defense Secretary James Mattis according to court documents unsealed this week.

In the filing, Amazon Web Services (AWS) said that it wants to depose Trump to learn more about any private conversations or instructions that were given in regard to the JEDI contract award.

The cloud computing arm said it’s looking to depose seven “individuals who were instrumental” in the JEDI source selection and “played pivotal roles” in the ultimate awarding of the contract.

Amazon Web Services is also seeking to depose the Defense Department’s chief information officer, Dana Deasy, the chairpersons of the source selection authority (SSA), and the SSA itself, which awarded the contract to Microsoft,
A spokesperson for AWS told CNBC in a statement: “President Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to use his position as President and Commander in Chief to interfere with government functions – including federal procurements – to advance his personal agenda. The preservation of public confidence in the nation’s procurement process requires discovery and supplementation of the administrative record, particularly in light of President Trump’s order to ‘screw Amazon.’ The question is whether the President of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of the DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends.”

“While other individuals can testify about specific conversations he had with them individually, President Trump is the only individual who can testify about the totality of his conversations and the overall message he conveyed,” according to the filings. “Moreover, President Trump has unique knowledge about whether he had other, previously undisclosed conversations with individuals not previously identified, and who therefore do not appear on the deposition list.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.