The Pentagon's inspector general on Wednesday said it could not determine whether the White House influenced the award of a $10 billion contract to Microsoft Corp over Amazon, after several officials said their conversations were privileged "presidential communications." Libby Hogan reports.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that it can't rule out whether the White House influenced giving a $10 billion contract to Microsoft, instead of Amazon.
It's known as JEDI - or Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure and it's a cloud computing contract.
It's intended to give the U.S. military better access to data and technology from remote locations.
Amazon was originally seen as the favorite to win the award.
But it's blamed President Donald Trump for bias against the company and for improperly pressuring the Pentagon.
The new Pentagon report said, "we could not be certain whether there were any White House communications, with some Department of Defense officials which may have affected the JEDI procurement." They also say those officials cited "presidential communications privilege." It leaves open the question of whether Trump improperly tipped the scales given JEDI's size - and its big-name bidders, it's been one of the most closely watched U.S. defense contracts.
A spokesman for Amazon said quote, "The White House's refusal to cooperate with the IG's investigation is yet another blatant attempt to avoid a meaningful and transparent review of the JEDI contract award." In a Wednesday blog post, a Microsoft official said Amazon's pricing was key to its defeat, not the government bias Amazon is claiming.
Trump has publicly criticized Amazon head Jeff Bezos and the giant online retailer and accused the Bezos-owned Washington Post of unfair news coverage.
But Defense Secretary Mark Esper has rejected that there was bias in choosing Microsoft and said the Pentagon made its decision fairly and freely without external influence.