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Rubio Calls for Delay of Defense Department’s $10 Billion Cloud Bid

Rubio Calls for Delay of Defense Department’s $10 Billion Cloud Bid

(Bloomberg) -- Senator Marco Rubio is calling for the Defense Department to delay awarding its $10 billion cloud contract to ensure “a fair and open” contest.

Rubio, a Florida Republican, wrote a letter to National Security Adviser John Bolton asking him to direct the Pentagon to hold off on choosing a winner for the controversial project. In his letter, dated Thursday, Rubio said the project, known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud or JEDI “suffers from a lack of competition” and "will result in wasted taxpayer dollars."

“Our warfighters deserve the best capability possible and the taxpayers deserve the best value possible,” Rubio wrote. “Unfortunately, moving forward with the JEDI procurement will not further that goal.”

The Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rubio joins other key Republican lawmakers who have pressured the Trump administration to intervene in the Pentagon’s plan to choose just one winner for the deal.

The contract has become a corporate battleground as cloud providers use lobbying and lawsuits to try to gain the edge in the procurement.

In April, the Pentagon eliminated Oracle Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. from the competition, leaving Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. as the final contenders. Dana Deasy, the Pentagon’s chief information officer, has said the Defense Department expects to make an award in August.

To contact the reporter on this story: Naomi Nix in Washington at nnix1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, John Harney

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