Reps Call For Investigation Into Pentagon’s Handling Of Controversial $10 Billion Cloud Contract
Reps. Steve Womack of Arkansas and Tom Cole of Oklahoma requested an investigation into the Pentagon’s handling of a controversial cloud contract known as JEDI.
JEDI has provoked widespread criticism from the technology industry that the contract has been rigged from the start to favor Amazon.
The request follows The Daily Caller News Foundation’s report in August detailing how a former senior adviser to Defense Secretary James Mattis, Sally Donnelly, had consulted for Amazon Web Services prior to entering the Pentagon.
Two members of the House Appropriations Committee requested an investigation Monday into the Pentagon’s handling of its $10 billion winner-take-all cloud computing contract following widespread criticism that the deal has been rigged from the start to favor Amazon.
Amazon Web Services is the only cloud computing platform that meets all the specifications of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program, which stands to be one of the largest stand-alone technology contracts the federal government’s ever awarded at up to $10 billion over 10 years. The Department of Defense is expected to select a winner for the contract in April.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in August that a former senior adviser to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Sally Donnelly, had once consulted for Amazon Web Services through a firm she owned. Donnelly did not recuse herself from involvement in crafting the contract, despite receiving payments from the sale of her Amazon-linked firm, which she sold just prior to entering the Pentagon. (RELATED: Government Ethics Watchdogs Fear Amazon’s Web Of Influence May Have Tainted Pentagon’s $10 Billion JEDI Cloud Deal)
“It has come to our attention through media reports that individuals who held, or hold, high ranking positions in the Department have access to the specific contractor,” Reps. Steve Womack of Arkansas and Tom Cole of Oklahoma wrote in a letter Monday to Department of Defense Acting Inspector General Glenn Fine. The “specific contractor” in question appears to be a reference to Amazon Web Services.
“Our current understanding is that these individuals, in direct contrast with the Federal Acquisition Regulation and DoD Ethics Policy, had involvement in the development of the JEDI program,” the letter continues.
Mattis met with Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos at the tech giant’s headquarters in August 2017, resulting in what Defense One reported as a “transformative” experience for Mattis where he became convinced that a department-wide move to a commercial cloud provider such as Amazon Web Services was necessary
Two days before Donnelly departed the DOD for the private sector on March 9, the Pentagon issued a draft request for proposal for JEDI, which many in the IT industry complained provided an unfair advantage for Amazon’s cloud platform.
DOD spokeswoman Heather Babb would not tell TheDCNF whether Donnelly organized Mattis’s summit with Bezos. Instead, she generally said the two were involved in “arranging meetings and travel.”
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