Amazon Web Services Inc. has gotten the backing of a couple of influential independent watchdog groups as it fights to overturn the Department of Defense’s controversial decision to award a key cloud computing contract worth up to $10 billion to its rival Microsoft Corp.

The DOD awarded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project to Microsoft in October following a hotly contested bidding process that saw earlier bids from IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp. also lose out. The JEDI contract, which has a value of $10 billion over 10 years, was expected to be awarded to AWS until very late in the process.

Citing U.S. President Donald Trump’s misgivings with Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, AWS responded to the decision by filing a lawsuit against the Pentagon, claiming that the JEDI award process was tainted by bias. In a December court filing AWS charged that “improper pressure” from President Trump led to the DOD’s decision to award the contract to Microsoft.

And last month, Amazon filed both a request for a temporary restraining order, on which a ruling is expected later this week, and a motion to stop work on the project, on which a ruling could be made in a couple of weeks.

Trump is accused of having “launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer the JEDI Contract away from AWS to harm his perceived political enemy — Jeffrey P. Bezos,” AWS said in its complaint.

Now, AWS’ case is getting some help from two pro-democracy watchdogs that on Monday filed amicus briefs in its support. The groups, Protect Democracy and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington or CREW, both say they take no position on whether or not AWS should be awarded the JEDI contract over Microsoft. Instead, they argue that a dangerous precedent would be set if a federal contract is awarded because of pressure from a sitting U.S. president.

Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to prevent democracy in the U.S. from declining into a more authoritarian form of government, said in its filing it has two interests in the case. The first is to protect the independence of federal agencies from personal interference and manipulation by the president. The second is to protect the fundamental democratic right to dissent, which is buttressed by the freedoms of speech and press guaranteed under the First Amendment.

“Plaintiff Amazon Web Services’ bid protest implicates these issues because of well-founded concerns that the President of the United States — the most powerful person in our government — is using the award of a lucrative cloud computing contract critical to our national security for the purpose of punishing a perceived political enemy and quashing critical news coverage of his administration by a major media company,” Protect Democracy said in its filing.

The group argues that this constitutes both “bad faith” and “misconduct” by the government, and that Trump is advancing his personal interests at the expense of the public.

“Failure to allow discovery in a case where the need is so compelling and the issues at stake are so crucial to the functions of democratic government would be a step toward allowing presidents to abuse their power with impunity,” it said.

Meanwhile, CREW, a nonpartisan, nonprofit corporation that said it seeks to combat corrupting influences in government and ensure the integrity of government officials and operations, makes similar allegations. In a separate filing it said AWS’ complaint that the DOD inaccurately evaluated technical aspects of its proposal for the JEDI contract raises “serious concerns about conflicts of interest, loss of impartiality and unethical conduct.”

“The issue presented by Plaintiff’s motion to supplement the record is whether these allegations of impropriety may be fully investigated,” CREW said in the filing. “CREW believes that public confidence in the integrity of the JEDI procurement process depends on such an investigation.”

CREW also noted AWS’ complaint that Trump twice explicitly directed DOD officials on how they should proceed with the procurement process, including the allegation that he reportedly told then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis to “screw Amazon.”

“AWS’s allegations of improper influence here are “sufficiently well grounded” to warrant supplementation of the record,” the filing said. “For the foregoing reasons, amicus CREW respectfully requests the Court grant Plaintiff’s motion to supplement the record.”

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller told SiliconANGLE the amicus briefs in support of AWS aren’t really a surprise in what is an increasingly partisan Washington D.C.

“The main fuel of this story is that the Pentagon is offering a significant workload to cloud vendors,” Mueller said. “The Pentagon load may be the one that puts Azure ahead of AWS. And because the Pentagon contract will most likely include significant artificial intelligence loads, the first-vendor advantage is substantial.”

With reporting from John Furrier and Robert Hof

Photo: AutoGirl/Pixabay