Trump Claims Executive Privilege In Amazon Lawsuit

Politico reports:

The Pentagon’s inspector general “could not definitively determine” whether the White House influenced the procurement process for a major cloud computing contract because senior Defense Department officials were barred from answering questions on the subject during interviews, according to a 313-page report released on Wednesday.

Department personnel who evaluated proposals and awarded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract were not pressured by any senior DoD leaders, the IG found.

But investigators were unable to rule out whether the White House interfered with the contract award because DoD’s general counsel instructed senior DoD witnesses not to verbally answer questions about communications between the White House and Pentagon because of “the assertion of a ‘presidential communications privilege.’”

It’s widely believed that Trump directed the Pentagon not to award the $10 billion contract to Amazon in order to punish Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post.