• Reuters reports this morning that the Pentagon's Inspector General is saying that it cannot be determined whether the Trump administration improperly influenced the decision to award a $10 billion could computing contract - known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) - to Microsoft instead of Amazon, because several conversations were classified by White House officials as privileged “presidential communications.”
Amazon originally was the favorite to win the award, and blamed its loss of the contract on Trump's antipathy for its CEO-founder, Jeff Bezos, who in a private investment also owns the Washington Post, which has been aggressive in its coverage of the administration.
Predictably, the report's lack of a conclusion prompted very different reactions, with the Department of Defense saying it should end any speculation about improper influence by the White House, and Trump critics saying it continues a "troubling" trend of improper presidential influence and resistance to oversight.
