Amazon to call Trump to testify in Pentagon JEDI contract dispute

Amazon to call President Trump to the witness stand over his ‘screw Amazon’ comment to former Secretary of Defense James Mattis

Amazon is planning to call President Trump to testify in its lawsuit over the Pentagon's $10 billion JEDI cloud computing, which it claims was unfairly awarded to rival Microsoft.

The company has argued that Trump was personally involved in the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud tender, and was intent on ensuring that Amazon Web Services (AWS) didn't win. According to the autobiography of Defense Secretary James Mattis, Trump had asked him to "screw Amazon" out of the contract.

Mattis was Defense Secretary from January 2017 until January 2019, and was therefore not involved in the final nine months of the process. Amazon is also planning to call the current Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, to testify as well.

Amazon's lawsuit explicitly references Trump's ‘screw Amazon' comment, as alleged in Mattis's autobiography, with the company wanting to call Trump to the stand in order to explain how this comment "was carried out during the decision making process".

However, Amazon admits, without Trump's testimony the court "cannot objectively and fully evaluate" the company's allegations.

Amazon is also looking to put Mattis on the stand, Pentagon CIO Dana Deasy and four other officials involved in the procurement.

"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 spokesperson told Reuters.

They added: "The question is whether the President of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of the DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends."

The lawsuit also claims that Trump directly interfered in the $400 million December 2019 border wall contract, awarded to Fisher Industries, and a number of other areas.

Last month, Amazon applied to the court to stop Microsoft from working on the project until its lawsuit had been heard.

Current Defense Secretary Esper, meanwhile, has denied that Trump interfered in the process and says that the Pentagon awarded the contract entirely on the merits of the tendering companies' proposals.