The Pentagon’s inspector general uncovered few problems with the hotly contested $10 billion JEDI cloud-computing contract given to Microsoft but was not able to assess assertions of ethical misconduct due to limited cooperation by the White House.
The investigation by the Defense Department’s former acting watchdog, Glenn Fine, looked into claims of improper political pressure from the White House and allegations of unethical behavior by some of the Defense officials involved in the decision-making behind granting the cloud-computing contract to Microsoft in late 2019.
Microsoft competed with Amazon Web Services, which had been considered the front-runner, and won the contract in October. Amazon then filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging improper influence by President Trump, who is known to have a feud with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post, which Bezos owns. Other companies, including IBM and Oracle, also challenged the veracity of the procurement process. A judge for the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ordered the Pentagon in February to pause the implementation of the contract until Amazon’s legal challenge is settled.
According to the 317-page report made public on Wednesday, the Pentagon inspector general said his team “could not review this matter fully” because of the Trump administration’s assertion of “presidential communications privilege.” The watchdog said this resulted in several witnesses being instructed by the Defense Department General Counsel’s Office “not to answer our questions.” Thus, the Pentagon watchdog “could not definitively determine the full extent or nature” of interactions White House officials may have had with senior Pentagon officials about the contract.
The office told the Pentagon watchdog the White House counsel was only willing to allow witnesses to provide written answers to questions where presidential privilege was invoked. Investigators were not told how many questions that could mean but that written responses would mean further review by the White House counsel. The inspector general said they “declined to proceed in this matter” because “it would not be an appropriate and practical way to conduct our review.”
But the Defense Department inspector general concluded the evidence it did receive showed the Pentagon personnel who evaluated the contract proposals and selected Microsoft “were not pressured regarding their decision” by any senior Defense Department officials who may have been talking to the White House. The Pentagon watchdog interviewed the personnel involved in many stages of the process and found most of the identities and involvement were “unknown” to the White House and senior Pentagon leadership. The inspector general said none felt any “outside influence or pressure” to pick any particular company. The witnesses said the “media swirl” and Trump’s statements “did not directly or indirectly” influence the “integrity” of the process nor its outcome.
“Yet, these media reports, and the reports of President Trump’s statements about Amazon, ongoing bid protests, and ‘lobbying’ by JEDI Cloud competitors, as well as inaccurate media reports about the JEDI Cloud procurement process, may have created the appearance or perception that the contract award process was not fair or unbiased,” the report concluded.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Robert Carver said, “This report should finally close the door on the media and corporate-driven attacks on the career procurement officials who have been working tirelessly to get the much-needed JEDI cloud-computing environment into the hands of our front-line war fighters.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff indicated he was not impressed.
“When he’s not firing Inspector Generals, Trump is obstructing their investigations. Here, he’s hiding communications about a DOD contract for Amazon, a company Trump has repeatedly tried to punish because its founder owns the Washington Post. The corruption is in plain sight,” the California Democrat tweeted.
Trump removed Fine from the acting inspector general post earlier this month, barring him from overseeing the implementation of the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package. He returned to being the principal deputy inspector general.
The Defense Department issued a request for proposals in July 2018 for a possible 10-year, $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, cloud-computing contract. Oracle challenged the terms of the request with the Government Accountability Office in August 2018, and IBM protested the terms to the GAO in October, with the GAO denying both claims in late 2018. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled in favor of the Pentagon in July 2019.
Numerous lawmakers and media outlets also raised concerns.
The inspector general said he “substantiated” ethical misconduct by Deap Ubhi, the former product manager for the Defense Digital Service, as well as by Stacy Cummings, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for acquisition.
The investigation found Ubhi “committed ethical violations” during the early stages of JEDI procurement while at the Defense Department. These included Ubhi not disclosing he restarted employment negotiations with Amazon in September 2017 and accepted a job from the company in October 2017. The watchdog also said he lied three times to both Amazon and the Defense Department about his negotiations. The inspector general concluded that Ubhi violated ethical rules and “created the appearance of a conflict of interest.” But the Pentagon watchdog concluded Ubhi’s contributions to the JEDI process were minimal and didn’t affect the eventual outcome.
The report also concluded that Cummings “violated her ethical requirements” by “improperly participating” in the JEDI procurement process while owning up to $50,000 in Microsoft stock. The investigators concluded that, “because of her Microsoft stock ownership, she should not have participated in those JEDI procurement activities.” But the watchdog also found that her participation did not influence the eventual award decision.
The watchdog “did not substantiate” the allegations made against former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis or any other former top Pentagon officials.
