GOP Lawmakers Call for Investigation Into Amazon’s Alleged Bribery of Defense Official – By Santi Ruiz (Washington Free Beacon) / May 4 2021
Mike Lee, Ken Buck call for Justice Department investigation
Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) and Rep. Ken Buck (R., Colo.) on Tuesday asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Amazon for violating federal law while competing for a Department of Defense contract.
The lawmakers in a letter said Amazon may have bribed a senior defense official in order to secure a cloud computing contract, citing an alleged payment from an Amazon consultant to a top adviser to former secretary of defense James Mattis, Sally Donnelly.
Lee and Buck, citing an April 2020 inspector general report, say Donnelly received more than $1 million in undisclosed payments from an Amazon consultant during her time at the Defense Department. While the payments were officially for the 2017 sale of her consulting company, Donnelly reported only $390,000 from that sale. Lee and Buck allege the payment came in exchange for her willingness to promote Amazon in her official capacity at the Defense Department. Donnelly had done consulting work for Amazon’s cloud computing services, Amazon Web Services (AWS). She is now a member of the isolationist Quincy Institute’s board of directors.
Amazon’s alleged misbehavior came to light in a 2018 dossier released by a private investigative firm, Rosetti Star, which publicized the accusations. The Defense Department’s inspector general found no evidence of wrongdoing by either Donnelly or Mattis, but Lee and Buck suggested that finding was inadequate.
