“Our review is ongoing, and our team is making
substantial progress,” it said. “We recognize the
importance and time-sensitive nature of the
issues, and we intend to complete our review as
expeditiously as possible.”
The probe began June 11, weeks before
President Donald Trump said his administration
would take what he called “a very long look”
at the program after he received “tremendous
complaints” about it.
“I have had very few things where there’s been
such complaining,” Trump said July 18.
Amazon Web Services Inc., a division of
Amazon, and Microsoft Corp. are finalists for the
contract. The Pentagon is in the final stages of
determining the winner of the initial $1 million
Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI,
contract, which could be worth as much as $10
billion over 10 years if all options are exercised.
Trump is a critic of Amazon, the e-commerce
giant owned by Jeff Bezos. Bezos also owns The
Washington Post, and Trump has criticized the
paper’s coverage of his administration.
The Pentagon inspector general’s office said that
a team of auditors, investigators and lawyers
has been reviewing the JEDI cloud program in
response to issues raised by the Pentagon and
members of Congress.
The complaints include assertions that the
Pentagon unreasonably restricted competition
for the contract and that there were inside
negotiations with a Pentagon employee who
later went to work for Amazon. A U.S. Federal
Claims Court judge last month ruled in favor of
the Pentagon’s assertion that the contracting
process has been fair.
Two initial bidders -- IBM and Oracle -- have
pushed numerous complaints about the
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