Court Could Consider Whether Trump Interfered in Cloud Computing Contract

The decision could be a win for Amazon, which said it was passed over for the $10 billion Pentagon contract because of his animosity toward its founder, Jeff Bezos.

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. The decision could be a victory for Amazon, which claimed it was passed over during contract deliberations because of Mr. Trump’s animosity toward its founder, Jeff Bezos. But the Defense Department has hinted that it would scrap the contract altogether if litigation over it dragged on, evaporating Amazon’s chance to secure the multibillion-dollar deal. The 10-year contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, known as JEDI, was awarded to Microsoft in 2019 after a fierce fight among Amazon and other tech giants for the lucrative deal to modernize the military’s cloud-computing systems.