A federal judge has ordered the Defense Department to stop work on a federal cloud computing network after Amazon alleged President Trump illegally influenced the bidding process for the network’s contract.
The Defense Department awarded an estimated $10 billion contract to Microsoft in October to build the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure network. Amazon has sued the Trump administration, seeking testimony from Trump and a handful of current and former top defense officials, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
The judge handling Amazon’s case ordered Microsoft and the Defense Department to cease work on JEDI while investigators look into Amazon’s claims, according to the Washington Post. Trump has been critical of Amazon and its owner, Jeff Bezos. In July, Trump said he would look into the bidding process after Amazon emerged as an early favorite to get the contract.
“We are disappointed in today’s ruling and believe the actions taken in this litigation have unnecessarily delayed implementing DOD’s modernization strategy and put our nation’s war fighters in harm’s way,” Defense Department spokeswoman Rachel Van Johnson said.
“We are confident in our award of the JEDI Cloud contract to Microsoft and remain focused on getting this critical capability into the hands of our war fighters as quickly and efficiently as possible,” she added.
Amazon has accused Trump of forcing the Defense Department to skew its criteria for awarding the $10 billion contract and disadvantage Amazon.
“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,” an Amazon Web Services representative said when news about the lawsuit broke on Monday.
