Amazon Wants Trump to Testify About How Much He Hates Jeff Bezos - Vanity Fair

President Donald Trump has made no attempt to hide his disdain for Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos. From tweets about “Jeff Bozo” and the “Amazon Washington Post” to his allegations that the tech giant is scamming the U.S. Post Office, Trump hasn't been shy about his anti-Amazon bias—and Amazon believes he's had even more to say behind closed doors. As Amazon's lawsuit against the U.S. government for its failure to award the company a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon moves forward, the company filed a court document Monday arguing that in order to demonstrate that the Pentagon contract was withheld because of Trump's personal opposition to Amazon, it's necessary to hear from the man himself.

Amazon's legal team are pushing for Trump, along with former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and current Defense Secretary Mark Esper, to be formally deposed as part of the company's legal challenge, which alleges that “Trump's bias actually and irrevocably tainted the procurement process.” “President Donald J. Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to use his position as President and Commander in Chief to disrupt the orderly administration of government functions-including federal procurements-to advance personal motives,” the court document filed Monday alleges. “There is no question he did so here.” The contract—which initially was reported to heavily favor Amazon—was ultimately awarded to Microsoft, which Amazon alleges is an “objectively inferior competitor.” “In awarding the JEDI Contract to Microsoft, DoD committed numerous and compounding prejudicial errors,” which “pervaded nearly every evaluation factor to systematically disfavor [Amazon Web Services,]” the company argues. “These errors ultimately resulted in DoD awarding the JEDI Contract to a technologically inferior proposal that did not present the best value to the Government.”

Though having a sitting president testify in a contract lawsuit like this would be an unprecedented move, Amazon argues that Trump “has unique knowledge about his involvement in the bid process, including private conversations with and instructions to others about the process and the award.” “While other individuals can testify about specific conversations he had with them individually, President Trump is the only individual who can testify about the totality of his conversations and the overall message he conveyed,” Amazon argues, stating that it wants to hear from Trump “about conversations or other involvement he had regarding the JEDI bid process or efforts to harm Amazon or AWS.” And the company does have reason to suggest that Trump was pushing against Amazon getting the contract in private conversation. A recently-published book about Mattis's time in the Trump administration claims that the president told the then-secretary specifically to “screw Amazon” out of the contract, much to Mattis's dismay. “Relaying the story to us during Small Group, Mattis said, ‘We’re not going to do that. This will be done by the book, both legally and ethically,’” former Mattis speechwriter Guy Snodgrass recounts in the book. As the Amazon court filing notes, Mattis was subsequently fired six months later and replaced with Esper, who has said “that he would ‘[a]bsolutely’ follow whatever the President told him to do.”

Monday's legal filing ramps up the long-brewing feud between Trump and Bezos, as the billionaire's company pushed for the president to admit to potential wrongdoing under oath via a 43-page legal document that aggressively lambasts Trump for everything from his war with Amazon to his dealings in Ukraine. “This bid protest does not occur in a vacuum or on a blank slate. It takes place against the backdrop of President Trump's repeated intervention in the full spectrum of governmental functions to make a point to his perceived critics or to advance some personal agenda,” the court document argues, subsequently touching on topics ranging from Trump giving a border wall contract to a Fox News-friendly company and his attacks on CNN, to the president's recent impeachment. While Trump has yet to hit back against Amazon's bold move, his Department of Defense has already “strongly oppose[d]” the tech company's deposition requests. The request is “unnecessary, burdensome and merely seeks to delay getting this important technology into the hands of our warfighters,” DoD spokesman Robert Carver said in a statement.

Search

Amazon Wants Trump to Testify About How Much He Hates Jeff Bezos - Vanity Fair

0 Response to "Amazon Wants Trump to Testify About How Much He Hates Jeff Bezos - Vanity Fair"

Post a Comment