4 ms·

Oh for fucks sake. This is what, Amazon’s third chance at the trough? At what point is it cheating? Disclosure: long MSFT.

enraged_camel 5y ago
You can blame Trump for it. He tainted the contract process because he hates Bezos (who owns WaPo). This was the key point that Amazon focused on in their objection. edit: re: downvotes - the article states this in the sixth paragraph
- ralph84 5y ago
  Except there was never any evidence that Trump got involved, even after multiple independent reviews. MSFT just made a better proposal and AMZN was able to use the broken protest process to tie things up long enough to make canceling the fastest way forward for the DoD.
  - Thaxll 5y ago
    "A federal court said on Wednesday that it did not dismiss the possibility that former President Donald J. Trump interfered in the awarding of a military cloud-computing contract worth $10 billion, a decision that could result in the overhaul of a long-running effort to modernize technology at the Defense Department." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/technology/trump-jedi-pentagon-microsoft-amazon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/technology/trump-jedi-pen...
    - pyuser583 5y ago
      I can’t read the article due to paywall, but “did not dismiss the idea that” is different from “there is evidence that”. Can you summarize/quote the relevant parts of the article? What evidence did the court find?
    - slownews45 5y ago
      They key thing was the court saw enough smoke to keep case alive AND it looked like recently was going to force some disclosure around communications from whitehouse (whitehouse has variously claimed no involvement).
    - ralph84 5y ago
      And Trump hasn't dismissed the possibility that he won the 2020 election. At some point you have to produce the evidence. Where are the career DoD procurement people leaking to WaPo that they were pressured? This was AMZN thinking that all they needed to include in their proposal was market share numbers. MSFT's proposal was more responsive to the DoD's needs.
  - slownews45 5y ago
    What? A couple of points. The whitehouse blocked any disclosures of discussions / pressure even to the inspector general. They also issued notices to staff not to talk to IG. That's a pretty darn good sign that there WAS involvement by the whitehouse. The DoD is dropping this case because they were asked to reveal some of this information. Instead of disclosing it, they elect to cancel the contract. This was a specific issue in the current case, would DoD have to reveal this type of communication from whitehouse. Yes - people claim no pressure / no involvement - but it's blindingly obvious that there is a very good chance there was pressure. I have past experience with govt contracting so have a sense for what the flows look like. Contract selection put on hold, involvement of a political person (probably esper here). Ban on anyone talking about the potential discussion to internal auditors. Those are all the red flags.
    - 0xy 5y ago
      "There's no evidence therefore that's proof there was involvement" What? You're trying to pass off absolutely zero evidence as proof.
      - slownews45 5y ago
        I was responding to this statement - "Except there was never any evidence that Trump got involved, even after multiple independent reviews." The IG review specifically noted all the ways that Trump / Whitehouse blocked the answer to that question. The Whitehouse then also got rid of IG Fine in April 2020 - I mean, this guy served 28 years in justice then through bush / clinton / obama terms as an IG. Amazon also dug up stuff where Trump promised to GET involved. No one "cleared" trump in this. He stonewalled as long as he could.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    There isn’t any evidence but people adjust their priors based on historical conduct, and at some point you lose the benefit of the doubt.
  - Woden501 5y ago
    I'm sorry but the second these words left his mouth obviously indicating his displeasure with the likelihood of Amazon winning the contract he had influenced the outcome. “I will be asking them to look at it very closely to see what’s going on because I have had very few things where there’s been such complaining,” Trump said. "Not only complaining from the media — or at least asking questions about it from the media — but complaining from different companies like Microsoft and Oracle and IBM. Great companies are complaining about it. So we’re going to take a look at it. We’ll take a very strong look at it. Thank you very much everybody.” He head already shown at this point that he was an old boys club type of guy that would go after anyone who disagreed and support anyone who kissed his ass, so anyone having a hand in the selection of the winner of the contract that wanted favor with the president would obviously attempt to influence the outcome to not be Amazon. He should have kept his mouth shut on such a massive pending contract, but it's pretty obvious by now that keeping his mouth shut isn't something he's physically capable of doing. Now instead of having started on a crucial service that is needed by our military we're looking at likely further years of delays. All because the president was butthurt over some mean words in a newspaper.
  - Slartie 5y ago
    > Except there was never any evidence that Trump got involved, even after multiple independent reviews. That doesn't matter. We're not talking about criminal proceedings, where anyone has to be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. This is, at most, a civil law process. And it's the DoD canceling its own contract, which they are probably allowed to do for whatever reason.
slownews45 5y ago
The push by the Trump administration to kick Amazon off this contract was as pathetic as it was ham handed. Trump administration had asserted a “presidential communications privilege.” when asked if they leaned on the DoD to deselect Amazon. Pentagon lawyers instructed Defense officials not to talk with the IG about any discussions they may have had with the White House about JEDI. So basically - you know for SURE that there were communications about this.
paxys 5y ago
The contract should have gone to Amazon years ago. The fact that two fair evaluations in their favor got overturned (first by Oracle's lobbyists, then by Trump's intervention) was the cheating part.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

enraged_camel 5y ago

You can blame Trump for it. He tainted the contract process because he hates Bezos (who owns WaPo). This was the key point that Amazon focused on in their objection. edit: re: downvotes - the article states this in the sixth paragraph

ralph84 5y ago
Except there was never any evidence that Trump got involved, even after multiple independent reviews. MSFT just made a better proposal and AMZN was able to use the broken protest process to tie things up long enough to make canceling the fastest way forward for the DoD.
- Thaxll 5y ago
  "A federal court said on Wednesday that it did not dismiss the possibility that former President Donald J. Trump interfered in the awarding of a military cloud-computing contract worth $10 billion, a decision that could result in the overhaul of a long-running effort to modernize technology at the Defense Department." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/technology/trump-jedi-pentagon-microsoft-amazon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/technology/trump-jedi-pen...
  - pyuser583 5y ago
    I can’t read the article due to paywall, but “did not dismiss the idea that” is different from “there is evidence that”. Can you summarize/quote the relevant parts of the article? What evidence did the court find?
  - slownews45 5y ago
    They key thing was the court saw enough smoke to keep case alive AND it looked like recently was going to force some disclosure around communications from whitehouse (whitehouse has variously claimed no involvement).
  - ralph84 5y ago
    And Trump hasn't dismissed the possibility that he won the 2020 election. At some point you have to produce the evidence. Where are the career DoD procurement people leaking to WaPo that they were pressured? This was AMZN thinking that all they needed to include in their proposal was market share numbers. MSFT's proposal was more responsive to the DoD's needs.
- slownews45 5y ago
  What? A couple of points. The whitehouse blocked any disclosures of discussions / pressure even to the inspector general. They also issued notices to staff not to talk to IG. That's a pretty darn good sign that there WAS involvement by the whitehouse. The DoD is dropping this case because they were asked to reveal some of this information. Instead of disclosing it, they elect to cancel the contract. This was a specific issue in the current case, would DoD have to reveal this type of communication from whitehouse. Yes - people claim no pressure / no involvement - but it's blindingly obvious that there is a very good chance there was pressure. I have past experience with govt contracting so have a sense for what the flows look like. Contract selection put on hold, involvement of a political person (probably esper here). Ban on anyone talking about the potential discussion to internal auditors. Those are all the red flags.
  - 0xy 5y ago
    "There's no evidence therefore that's proof there was involvement" What? You're trying to pass off absolutely zero evidence as proof.
    - slownews45 5y ago
      I was responding to this statement - "Except there was never any evidence that Trump got involved, even after multiple independent reviews." The IG review specifically noted all the ways that Trump / Whitehouse blocked the answer to that question. The Whitehouse then also got rid of IG Fine in April 2020 - I mean, this guy served 28 years in justice then through bush / clinton / obama terms as an IG. Amazon also dug up stuff where Trump promised to GET involved. No one "cleared" trump in this. He stonewalled as long as he could.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  There isn’t any evidence but people adjust their priors based on historical conduct, and at some point you lose the benefit of the doubt.
- Woden501 5y ago
  I'm sorry but the second these words left his mouth obviously indicating his displeasure with the likelihood of Amazon winning the contract he had influenced the outcome. “I will be asking them to look at it very closely to see what’s going on because I have had very few things where there’s been such complaining,” Trump said. "Not only complaining from the media — or at least asking questions about it from the media — but complaining from different companies like Microsoft and Oracle and IBM. Great companies are complaining about it. So we’re going to take a look at it. We’ll take a very strong look at it. Thank you very much everybody.” He head already shown at this point that he was an old boys club type of guy that would go after anyone who disagreed and support anyone who kissed his ass, so anyone having a hand in the selection of the winner of the contract that wanted favor with the president would obviously attempt to influence the outcome to not be Amazon. He should have kept his mouth shut on such a massive pending contract, but it's pretty obvious by now that keeping his mouth shut isn't something he's physically capable of doing. Now instead of having started on a crucial service that is needed by our military we're looking at likely further years of delays. All because the president was butthurt over some mean words in a newspaper.
- Slartie 5y ago
  > Except there was never any evidence that Trump got involved, even after multiple independent reviews. That doesn't matter. We're not talking about criminal proceedings, where anyone has to be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. This is, at most, a civil law process. And it's the DoD canceling its own contract, which they are probably allowed to do for whatever reason.

slownews45 5y ago

The push by the Trump administration to kick Amazon off this contract was as pathetic as it was ham handed. Trump administration had asserted a “presidential communications privilege.” when asked if they leaned on the DoD to deselect Amazon. Pentagon lawyers instructed Defense officials not to talk with the IG about any discussions they may have had with the White House about JEDI. So basically - you know for SURE that there were communications about this.

paxys 5y ago

The contract should have gone to Amazon years ago. The fact that two fair evaluations in their favor got overturned (first by Oracle's lobbyists, then by Trump's intervention) was the cheating part.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]