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The
contract, called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure
Cloud, or JEDI, is part of a broad modernization of the
Pentagon's information technology systems.
Democratic Senators Mark Warner and Jack Reed asked Esper in a
letter why the Defense Department was reviewing the contract and
if Esper was directed by someone outside of the Pentagon to
delay or cancel the contract, which was in final talks with
Amazon Web Services. The senators publicly released a copy of
the letter.
Trump in July said his administration was examining Amazon's bid
following complaints from other tech companies.
Warner had raised his concerns about the decision to put a hold
on the contract in a tweet on Friday, saying that "for the
President to use the power of his office to punish critics in
the media would be a complete abuse of power."
Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, also owns
the Washington Post, which Trump has repeatedly accused of
unfair coverage.
The request from the two senators comes the same day that
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden asked Bezos if Amazon Web Services
"may have contributed to" a recent massive data breach of
Capital One Financial Corp's <COF.N> servers.
Wyden suggested a default server setting in Amazon's cloud
computing products could have been exploited in recent hacks,
citing cybersecurity experts, and asked Bezos how those attacks
could be "identified and mitigated."
Amazon did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Wyden joins Republican members of the U.S House of
Representatives Oversight Committee who asked Amazon on Thursday
to be briefed about the company's security protocols in light of
the breach.
(Reporting by Bryan Pietsch; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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