Susan Estrich: Bully and Billionaire – West Central Tribune

It was a front-page story in The Washington Post back in October 2019. Amazon was set to win a $10 billion Defense Department cloud computing contract (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI) when the contract was awarded to Microsoft at the last minute.

Then-President Donald Trump openly stated that he did not want the contract to go to Amazon. During his tenure, he was relentless in his attacks on the Amazon Washington Post and its owner, Jeff Bezos, for what he considered unfavorable and unfair coverage of his administration. Everyone, including Amazon and The Washington Post, has connected the dots.

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Amazon filed a lawsuit challenging the award of the Microsoft contract, arguing that “repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks” reflecting Trump’s alleged efforts to “screw Amazon” led the agency to choose a bid from Microsoft with “obvious failures.” “The question,” the complaint stated, “is whether the President of the United States can be allowed to use the Department of Defense budget to further his own personal and political goals. … At the time, President Trump’s inappropriate direct interference, his procurement hiatus, and the president’s personal goal of preventing AWS (Amazon Web Services) from receiving the JEDI contract were widely reported.”

The complaint cited a stream of Trump tweets targeting Bezos, Amazon and The Post as evidence of the president’s interference. While Trump attacked those targets, the company said, the Pentagon “took numerous actions to systematically take advantage of AWS’s technological superiority and expertise” and changed its interpretation of certain technical requirements at the last minute.

“The most plausible conclusion from these facts is simply this: Under increased and overt pressure from President Trump, the Department of Defense departed from procurement rules and obeyed — consciously or unconsciously — the commander-in-chief’s expressed desire to reject AWS’s prevailing offer,” the report said. the company claimed in its filing.

“President Trump’s animosity toward Mr. Bezos, Amazon, and the Washington Post is well-known, and stems at least in part from his displeasure with the Washington Post’s coverage of him before he took office,” Amazon said. “President Trump has criticized such coverage since at least 2015, and over time he has expanded his attacks on Mr. Bezos, Amazon and the Washington Post, often conflating the three as one.”

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Trump only had to do it once. Bezos learned his lesson. A hooligan and a billionaire. The hooligan won.

Bezos surely knew that when he vetoed Kamala Harris’ endorsement of The Washington Post, there would be many questions about what happened to the Post’s proud tradition of speaking truth to power. He must have assessed the risks to the newspaper’s reputation and circulation. In his opinion, it was worth it not to offend the bully.

You’d think one of the richest men in the world would have enough resources to stand up to a bully. Billionaires must be hard to intimidate. But Trump is a bigger and more unprincipled bully than most. If you’re wondering how big or how dangerous, look at Bezos, who let Trump make a fool of him to avoid insulting his expected support. If Bezos was afraid of him—more afraid of him than the enormous blow he and his paper had taken—consider what that means.

Trump has already made it clear that he intends to reward his friends and punish his enemies. Bezos knows what he means. It was worth everything he had endured and knew he would endure to get off the enemy list. Whatever you think of him, Bezos didn’t get to where he is today because of his stupidity. He knows what Trump is capable of and what he will do, and even one of the richest and most powerful people in the world is not rich or powerful enough to stand up to him.

What does this say about Trump?