Mary-Louise Hoffman
The Department of Defense has informed lawmakers about the potential implications of an ongoing legal battle with Amazon's cloud computing subsidiary over DOD's award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract to Microsoft, The Washington Times reported Thursday.
DOD officials told Congress in a memo they expect the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to issue a decision in the coming weeks regarding the allegation by Amazon Web Services that the Trump administration had an influence on the JEDI contracting process.
AWS filed a lawsuit in November 2019, one month after the department named Microsoft as the winner of its cloud infrastructure contract with a $10 billion ceiling value.
The memo obtained by The Washington Times says a federal judge could ask former White House and Pentagon officials to provide testimonies if the court lets the interference argument continue, according to the publication.
Defense officials noted that deposition requests will further stretch the timeline for JEDI-related investigations and a lengthy battle will likely prompt the department's chief information officer to reevaluate its cloud procurement strategy.
