Quick Hits

*** The Department of Defense is signaling that it could pull the plug on the $10 billion JEDI cloud program if an upcoming federal court ruling doesn't go their way.

A document from the DOD CIO's office indicates that an unfavorable ruling on the count of improper political influence raised by Amazon Web Services in its protest lawsuit could lead to protracted litigation. The document notes that the discovery process and requests for depositions from former White House and DOD senior officials will "elongate the timeline significantly" and in that event, "the DOD CIO would reassess the strategy going forward."

Microsoft won the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract in October, 2019. The award was challenged in court by AWS, and DOD has been operating under a stop work order until the protest is decided.

Left unsaid by the brief communication from OCIO to Congress is whether the Biden Administration is prepared to defend the conduct of the procurement – particularly any actions by former President Donald J. Trump or his senior staff – in court.

The document indicates that a "significant" ruling on the government's motion to dismiss the latest revision of the AWS lawsuit is expected "in the coming weeks".

"Regardless of the JEDI cloud litigation outcome, the Department continues to have an urgent, unmet requirement" for enterprise cloud at the unclassified, secret and top secret levels stretching from the United States to warfighters in the field, the document states.