4 Congressional Republicans told Trump that delaying the Pentagon’s $10 billion JEDI project could harm national security (AMZN, MSFT, ORCL, GOOG)

Benjamin Pimentel

July 19, 2019 1:11 AM

Four Republican members of Congress told President Trump delaying the $10 billion Pentagon JEDI cloud project could pose risks to US security.

President Donald Trump calls to the media as he waits to greet Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as he arrives at the White House in Washington, Thursday, July 18, 2019. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The Congressional members said the JEDI is key to competing with adversaries like China.
Trump on Thursday said he would look into the JEDI bid, following protests from Oracle and IBM.

Four Republican members of the US Congress on Thursday told President Trump that it's important for the Pentagon's $10 billion JEDI cloud project to move forward, saying "unnecessary delays" could harm US security.

Read the Letter from the Republican members of Congress on the JEDI contract.

The letter from the Republican Congress members was sent Trump said he was looking into complaints against the contract process for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, project, a platform that will store and manage sensitive military and defense data.

Amazon and Microsoft are the finalists for the contract which is set to be awarded in late August. But Trump said he wanted more information on the process saying, "we're getting tremendous complaints from other companies." Indeed, IBM and Oracle both lodged formal protests against the JEDI bid.

But, in their letter, the Republican Congressional members said: "While it is understandable that some of the companies competing for the contract are disappointed at not being selected as one of the finalists, further unnecessary delays will only damage our security and increase the costs of the contract."

The letter was signed by Marc Thornberry of Texas, Elise Stefanik of New York, Rob Whittman of Virginia, and Mike Turner of Ohio, who also said, "moving to the cloud will help the DoD [Department of Defense] operate faster, more efficiently, and compete with adversaries like China."

Analysts also said a delay in the contract award could hurt the chances of Amazon and Microsoft.

Got a tip about Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle or another tech company? Contact this reporter via email at bpimentel@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter @benpimentel . You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop .

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