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Amazon to use Trump comments in challenge to $10B contract awarded to Microsoft

Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Amazon is citing comments made by President Trump in the company's legal challenge to the Defense Department for granting a $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft, the Washington Post reports.

The big picture: Amazon is suing the Pentagon, claiming the decision to hand Microsoft the contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project in late October was influenced by Trump, who has repeatedly and publicly taken shots at Amazon. A company spokesperson has said an "unmistakable bias" affected the Pentagon's decision-making process, per the Post.

  • Amazon notified the Court of Federal Claims that the company plans to show four videos as evidence, including one of Trump at a campaign rally in 2016 and another of a Fox News host telling the president not to award the contract to Amazon, per the Post.

What they're saying:

“We also believe it’s critical for our country that the government and its elected leaders administer procurements objectively and in a manner that is free from political influence ... Numerous aspects of the JEDI evaluation process contained clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias- and it’s important that these matters be examined and rectified.”
— Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener, per the Post
"We're ready to get to work so the men and women in uniform who serve our country can access the critical new technology they urgently require. We have confidence in the qualified staff at the Department of Defense, and we believe the facts will show they ran a detailed, thorough and fair process in determining the needs of the warfighter were best met by Microsoft."
— Microsoft spokesperson to Axios

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has previously described the procurement process as fair and without outside influence.

Go deeper: Bill Gates tops Jeff Bezos as richest person in the world

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CIA Director Gina Haspel. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

CIA Director Gina Haspel threatened to resign in early December after President Trump cooked up a hasty plan to install loyalist Kash Patel, a former aide to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), as her deputy, according to three senior administration officials with direct knowledge of the matter.

Why it matters: The revelation stunned national security officials and almost blew up the leadership of the world's most powerful spy agency. Only a series of coincidences — and last minute interventions from Vice President Mike Pence and White House counsel Pat Cipollone — stopped it.

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Coronavirus dashboard

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

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John Weaver, Lincoln Project co-founder, acknowledges “inappropriate” messages

John Weaver aboard John McCain's campaign plane in February 2000. Photo: Robert Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

John Weaver, a veteran Republican operative who co-founded the Lincoln Project, declared in a statement to Axios on Friday that he sent “inappropriate,” sexually charged messages to multiple men.

  • “To the men I made uncomfortable through my messages that I viewed as consensual mutual conversations at the time: I am truly sorry. They were inappropriate and it was because of my failings that this discomfort was brought on you,” Weaver said.
  • “The truth is that I'm gay,” he added. “And that I have a wife and two kids who I love. My inability to reconcile those two truths has led to this agonizing place.”
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