Amazon Says Pentagon's JEDI Award To Microsoft Was Based On Trump's Desire To 'Screw Amazon'

Improper pressure from President Donald Trump, who said he wanted to "screw Amazon," contributed to the decision to deny Amazon.com Inc.'s AMZN Amazon Web Services a $10 billion defense contract, the company alleges in a newly unsealed complaint protesting the award.

The Amazon Allegations

Amazon alleges it didn't get the contract because its founder and CEO is Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post newspaper, and whom Trump has publicly criticized.

The Defense Department in October awarded the JEDI contract, for creating a system to process and store huge amounts of classified data, to Microsoft Corporation MSFT.

Amazon, however, challenged the decision in a complaint unsealed Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, alleging the award of the project to its rival was "the result of improper pressure from President Donald J. Trump, who launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer the JEDI contract away from AWS to harm his perceived political enemy - Jeffrey P. Bezos.

"DoD's substantial and pervasive errors are hard to understand and impossible to assess separate and apart from the President's repeatedly expressed determination to, in the words of the President himself, 'screw Amazon,'" the complaint says. "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."

Pentagon, Microsoft Respond

In a statement sent to The Associated Press, Pentagon spokeswoman Elissa Smith said the decision to award the contract to Microsoft over Amazon “was made by an expert team of career public servants and military officers" and wasn't influenced by external pressure.

“The department is confident in the JEDI award," Smith said.

Microsoft said it has confidence in the decision, and "we believe the facts will show they ran a detailed, thorough and fair process," the AP reported.

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