Category: Not Factual

Trump Official Lynne Patton Promotes Clinton Conspiracy in Jeffrey Epstein Suicide

Lynne Patton, the head of New York and New Jersey’s Housing and Urban Development, promoted a Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory in the wake of Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide.

At around 6:30 a.m. on August 10, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Epstein is believed to have killed himself by hanging. At the time of his death, Epstein was not on suicide watch. A few weeks earlier, it was widely reported that Epstein had attempted suicide in his cell.

Epstein was 66 years old. Epstein, a financier, was arrested in July 2019 and accused of sex trafficking minors in Florida and New York. Epstein’s connections to the political and business worlds had led to his case becoming front page news across the world.

Shortly after news of Epstein’s arrest spread, Patton posted this to her Instagram page.

The caption for the post read, “Hillary’d!! 😳P.S. Let me know when I’m supposed to feel badly about this… #VinceFosterPartTwo.” On that Instagram page, Patton says of herself, “Longtime Trump Aide | RNC Speaker | Posts are my own & do not represent @HUDgov, incl. all images, links, tags & comments left by readers | NY ✈️ DC.” 

The reference to Vince Foster is regarding Bill Clinton’s former White House counsel who committed suicide in July 1993, six months after Clinton took office. Five separate investigations ruled Foster’s death a suicide. Despite this, conspiracy theories regarding a Clinton-led cover-up remain to this day.

NBC News’ Tom Winter tweeted about Epstein suicide considering he had been on suicide watch saying, “It is really incomprehensible how Jeffrey Epstein was allowed to be in a position where he could hang himself. High-profile defendant. Previous attempt at injuring himself. Dozens of victims seeking justice they now won’t get. The law enforcement community is steaming.”

Conservative talk show host Andrew Wilkow reiterated the Clinton conspiracy theory in a tweet that read, “#JeffreyEpstein attempted suicide before, was he or was he not suicide watch? If not who decided to give him another chance? This has the Clinton’s fingerprints all over it.”

Less than two hours after Epstein’s suicide was announced, the term “ClintonBodyCount” became a trending topic on Twitter. As did the phrase “Another Clinton.”

[Heavy]

White Supremacists Responsible for All Race-Based Domestic Terrorism Incidents in 2018 – DOJ Blocked Report

The Trump administration has known since at least April that alleged white supremacists were responsible for every single act of race-based domestic terrorism in the U.S. in 2018, yet not only took no action to combat the growing right wing violent extremism, but actually substantially reduced or even eliminated funding and programsthat combat white supremacist extremism, violence, and terrorism – and then blocked the data from reaching the hands of Congress.

“Domestic Terrorism in 2018,” a document (embedded below) prepared by the State of New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security Preparedness, “shows 25 of the 46 individuals allegedly involved in 32 different domestic terrorism incidents were identified as white supremacists,” Yahoo News’ Jana Winter and Hunter Walker report.

That document finds there were “32 domestic terrorist attacks, disrupted plots, threats of violence, and weapons stockpiling by individuals with a radical political or social agenda who lack direction or influence from foreign terrorist organizations in 2018.”

The report was “circulated” throughout the U.S. Dept. of Justice “and around the country in April just as members of the Senate pushed the DOJ to provide them with precise information about the number of white supremacists involved in domestic terrorism.”

The Justice Department, under President Trump’s hand-picked Attorney General Bill Barr, refused to hand over the data or the document to Congress.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in January of 2019 had already compiled a report, announcing that, “Right-Wing Extremism Linked to Every 2018 Extremist Murder in the U.S., ADL Finds.”

ADL reported that “Right-wing extremists were linked to at least 50 extremist-related murders in the United States in 2018, making them responsible for more deaths than in any year since 1995, according to new data from the ADL.”

1995 was the year domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City federal building, slaughtering 168 people and injuring more than 680 others.

“The tally represents a 35 percent increase from the 37 extremist-related murders in 2017,” ADL reported, “making 2018 the fourth-deadliest year on record for domestic extremist-related killings since 1970. Last year saw the highest percentage of right-wing extremist-related killings since 2012, the last year when all documented killings were by right-wing extremists.”

Why the Dept. of Justice and the White House blocked the data from reaching Congress is now yet another investigation Congress should take up.

Here’s the document the DOJ refused to hand over to Members of the House and Senate:

[New Civil Rights Movement]

Trump Loses it on Hollywood Amid Furor Over ‘The Hunt’ Movie: ‘Racist at the Highest Level … With Great Anger and Hate!’

President Donald Trump bizarrely doubled down on a line of attack against the film industry, claiming “Hollywood is Racist at the highest level” in reference to an unnamed movie — presumably Universal’s “The Hunt,” in which elites hunt down “deplorables” for sport.

“They like to call themselves “Elite,” but they are not Elite. In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the Elite,” apparently in reference to himself and his supporters.

Trump did not specify what movie he was mad at, but was continuing a line of attacks from this morning.

It was likely Trump was talking about the upcoming thriller “The Hunt,” which appears to be inspired by the famous story “The Most Dangerous Game.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film involves a cabal of wealthy elites kidnapping a group of “deplorables” to hunt for sport, until the hunted later turn the tables on their captors.

“They’re treating conservatives very unfairly. Hollywood, I don’t call them the elites. I think the elites are people that go after them in many cases,” said Trump. “But Hollywood is really terrible. You talk about racism, Hollywood is racist!” Trump said before leaving for a 10-day vacation.

“The Hunt” is scheduled to be released in theaters next month.

[Mediaite]

Trump Shares Racist Tucker Carlson Clip Amid White Supremacy Controversy

President Donald Trump retweeted a racist clip of Fox News Host Tucker Carlson, who’s facing backlash for claiming the notion of a white supremacy problem in the U.S. is “a hoax” created by the left and the media.

The video ― created by The Daily Caller, a conservative news site that Carlson co-founded ― features the Fox host discussing and questioning the legitimacy of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) prior marriage, immigration status and name. Omar, an American citizen, was born in Somalia and immigrated to the U.S. as a child.

The “sham marriage” that Carlson refers to is a popular right-wing conspiracy theory that Omar married her brother in order to bypass U.S. immigration laws. There is no evidence that indicates this is the case, and the theory originated from an anonymous internet forum post in 2016. 

Omar has denied the claim and provided a timeline of her marital history. In 2018, she showed a reporter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune images of her father’s immigration documents, which did not list her former husband among his children.

But this is not the first time that the president has drawn attention to the unsubstantiated theory.

“Well, there is a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother,” Trump told reporters last month, before adding: “I know nothing about it.”

Trump has a history of engaging in or promoting racist attacks that question the legitimacy of the congresswoman’s status as an American. He has claimed that Omar hates America and said that she, alongside three other progressive Democratic congresswomen, should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

Carlson currently faces public backlash for claiming that white supremacy is not a threat in America just days after a shooter killed 22 people and injured dozens more at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The shooter reportedly penned a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto before driving nine hours to the largely Hispanic border town.

“This is a hoax, just like the Russia hoax,” Carlson said on Tuesday of the notion that white supremacy was a major threat in the U.S. “It’s a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power. That’s exactly what’s going on.”

Fox News and Carlson have lost several advertisers, including Long John Silver’s, Nestlé and HelloFresh, in the aftermath of his claim.

When the president was asked on Wednesday if he was concerned about the rising threat of white supremacy, he told reporters he was concerned about all hate groups, “whether it’s white supremacy, whether it’s any other kind of supremacy.”

[Huffington Post]

Trump Attacks Ohio Senator After Leaving Visit to Dayton Shooting Victims: ‘Failed Presidential Candidate (0%)’

Shortly after departing Dayton, OH after visiting victims of Sunday’s mass shooting, President Donald Trump attacked the city’s mayor and one of Ohio’s senators.

In a pair of tweets while en route to El Paso, the president ripped Sen. Sherrod Brown(D-OH) and Dayton mayor Nan Whaley for comments they made in a news conference following the president’s visit Wednesday afternoon.

“Just left Dayton, Ohio, where I met with the Victims & families, Law Enforcement, Medical Staff & First Responders,” Trump wrote. It was a warm & wonderful visit. Tremendous enthusiasm & even Love. Then I saw failed Presidential Candidate (0%) Sherrod Brown & Mayor Whaley totally … misrepresenting what took place inside of the hospital. Their news conference after I left for El Paso was a fraud. It bore no resemblance to what took place with those incredible people that I was so lucky to meet and spend time with. They were all amazing!”

In the news conference, Brown (who never officially declared himself a candidate for the presidency) said this when asked why he reversed course on taking part in Trump’s visit to Dayton, after originally balking.

“I didn’t want to in any way encourage the president’s racist talk and divisive talk,” Brown said. “I came because Mayor Whaley asked me to come.”

Whaley was critical of Washington at large, talking about what she views as the dim prospect of gun control legislation being enacted.

“I’m not holding my breath,” she said.

[Mediaite]

Trump administration labels China a currency manipulator

The Trump administration on Monday designated China a “currency manipulator,” after the country’s central bank allowed its currency to weaken amid the ongoing trade dispute.

The move comes hours after Trump accused Beijing of depreciating its currency on Twitter, adding later that such measures have been used to “steal our business and factories, hurt our jobs, depress our workers’ wages and harm our farmers’ prices. Not anymore!”

The People’s Bank of China allowed its currency to fall below 7 yuan to the American dollar, which is considered to be a psychologically important marker, for the first time in a decade. The move was seen as a retaliatory measure following Trump’s threat to slap a 10% tariff on $300 billion of Chinese goods.

The yuan’s depreciation comes amid a longstanding trade war between Washington and Beijing as each side has slapped economic penalties alongside on-again, off-again negotiations.

Presidents have often used the twice-a-year currency report as a diplomatic tools while engaging with countries that are seen as having exchange rates that harm US jobs and economic growth.

The United States hasn’t labeled a country a currency manipulator since it tagged China in the early 1990s, under President Bill Clinton. Designating a country doesn’t immediately trigger penalties, but it is seen by other governments as a provocation.

Treasury has repeatedly declined to label China a currency manipulator, despite Trump’s pledge to do so during his 2016 campaign. Instead, the country was placed on Treasury’s “monitoring list” in its review of US trading partners along with eight other countries.

Treasury’s report highlighted “significant concerns” over the meaningful depreciation of China’s currency against the US dollar, a critical component of ongoing trade talks, and urged China to take steps to avoid “a persistently weak currency.”

But on Monday Treasury said China’s central bank openly acknowledged that it has “extensive experience manipulating its currency and remains prepared to do so on an ongoing basis,” pointing to an earlier statement released by the People’s Bank of China.

The PBOC’s statement noted that it “has accumulated rich experience and policy tools, and will continue to innovate and enrich the control toolbox, and take necessary and targeted measures against the positive feedback behavior that may occur in the foreign exchange market.”

Trump has repeatedly argued that the Chinese have depreciated their currency slowly in the last year to help offset tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods amid an ongoing trade war between the two major economic superpowers.

[CNN]

Reality

Donald Trump knows nothing about economics and it’s again abundantly clear after he labeled China a currency manipulator after the yuan dropped 1.7 percent, claiming China purposefully forced the yuan down.

The reality is the yuan’s decrease was from three different forces, first trade wars can cause a country’s currency to plunge. For example this happened to Mexico during Trump’s trade war for NAFTA 2.0.
(See: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/31/peso-plunges-vs-the-us-dollar-after-trump-announces-mexican-import-tariffs.html)

Second, a stronger dollar causes other countries currencies to devalue in relation. This is basic economics. As a side note Donald Trump doesn’t want a stronger dollar and has tried to get the Fed to artificially weaken the dollar. You know… manipulate currency.
(See: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/devaluation.asp)

Finally China had actually been propping up the yuan during Trump’s trade wars, the action China took was to just stop and accepting current market forces. Again, China most likely stopped fighting market headwinds as retaliation to Trump’s escalation of his trade wars, so the correct assessment is they were artificially manipulating the currency before by propping it up, but Trump is saying they are manipulating the currency now, which is just plain incorrect.
(See: https://www.ft.com/content/9d24c1ca-b7cd-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea203)

Trump is speeding us into a Smoot-Hawley scenario, which exacerbated the Great Depression, and will make the next recession worse than it normally will be with his backwards understanding of basic economics.

After watching Lou Dobbs, Trump attacked Google for firing an apparent white nationalist sympathizer

President Donald Trump spent part of Tuesday morning tweeting about a segment from Fox Business host Lou Dobbs’ show which championed Kevin Cernekee, a former Google engineer who claims he was fired because of the company’s purported anti-conservative bias. “All very illegal,” Trump concluded of the company’s purported actions, adding, “We are watching Google very closely!” This is at least the third time Trump has publicly suggested he would take action against Google based on what he’s seen on Fox.

Right-wing media have trumpeted Cernekee’s story over the past few days, with outlets fitting him neatly into their narrative that tech companies have it in for Republicans. But the story is more complicated than that: While it portrays him as a rank-and-file conservative, Cernekee appears to have repeatedly defended white nationalists on internal Google message boards.

How Cernekee’s story ended up on the president’s Twitter says a lot about the right-wing media ecosystem, their obsession with finding supposed conservative martyrs of tech companies, and Trump’s reckless consumption and promotion of whatever Fox News happens to put in front of his eyes.

The cautionary tale of “Republican engineer” Kevin Cernekee

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal’s Rob Copeland profiled Cernekee, portraying him as a “Republican engineer” fired from the company for the conservative views he expressed on the company’s internal message boards.

“Google told Mr. Cernekee in a termination letter that he was let go for multiple violations of company policies, including improperly downloading company information and misuse of the remote-access software system,” Copeland reported. “Mr. Cernekee, who hasn’t spoken publicly before about his status at Google, denies that. He says he was fired for being an outspoken conservative in famously liberal Silicon Valley.” 

Copeland largely paraphrased Cernekee’s message board posts or accepted his explanations of them rather than quoting their content. This made it impossible for readers to assess precisely what his views were. But the story’s 28th paragraph provides a tantalizing detail: A fellow conservative engineer “internally circulated a dossier describing Mr. Cernekee as ‘the face of the alt-right’ at Google” (that engineer was also later fired).

It remains contested whether Cernekee’s views triggered his termination. But the Journal’s framing of Cernekee as simply a “Republican” with “conservative take[s]” who stands up for other “right-leaning employees” created the impression that it is open season on anyone to the right of Hillary Clinton. That makes his actual opinions relevant. 

The Daily Caller, which has its own complicated history with the alt-right, pulled on that thread a few days later (though only after producing multiple stories amplifying Cernekee’s claims). Deputy Editor J. Arthur Bloom reported that Cernekee had “suggested raising money under the auspices of the company’s free speech listserv for a bounty to identify Richard Spencer’s assailant.” 

After Spencer, one of the nation’s most prominent white nationalists, was punched while giving an interview in January 2017, Cernekee suggested putting together a group donation to support the search for the puncher through racist troll Charles Johnson’s website.

Cernekee identified Spencer only as a “well known conservative activist.” When other Google employees pointed out that Spencer is “a prominent, vehement racist and anti­-Semite,” Cernekee defended him. 

The Daily Caller story was subsequently confirmed by BuzzFeed News tech reporter Ryan Mac. 

Bloom also reported that Cernekee had criticized a media description of the “Golden State Skinheads” as a neo-Nazi group, and he praised the organization for “[standing] up for free speech and free association.”

“Conservatives angry at big tech may view such postings as a cautionary lesson in the importance of vetting their cause célèbres,” Bloom concluded. 

Indeed.

Conservative media made Cernekee a cause célèbre

Right-wing media outlets have spent the last several years trumpeting complaints that social media platforms are biased against conservatives. This behavior is consistent with conservatives’ decades-long strategy of decrying the news media as biased against them in order to influence media coverage. But it is inconsistent with the facts.

“There is no evidence that Google, Facebook, or any other major tech company is biased against conservative employees or conservative content,” Recode reported in response to Cernekee’s allegations. “While it is true that most tech employees lean liberal in their personal beliefs, that doesn’t mean that their employers discriminate in the workplace, or in the products they build and maintain.”

Cernekee’s story echoed the conservative narrative about tech companies’ bias, and it rocketed through the right-wing media after Thursday’s Wall Street Journal profile. He was treated as both a conservative martyr and as a credible source for information on Google’s operations.

Notably, these aggregations portrayed Cernekee as a typical conservative, with only the Post mentioning that Cernekee had been linked to the “alt-right.”

By Friday night, Cernekee was being feted on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, a regular home for both deceptive attacks on tech companies and white supremacist talking points. After providing the former engineer the platform to repeat his allegation that he was fired for being a conservative, Carlson turned his attention to Google’s influence on the 2020 election. 

“Do you believe that Google will attempt to influence the election outcome or will attempt to try to prevent Trump from being reelected?” Carlson asked. 

“I do believe so. I think that’s a major threat,” he replied. 

“And yet, Congress, including Republicans are just sitting back and acting like it’s not happening,” Carlson responded. “It’s disgusting. Kevin, thank you for sounding that alarm.” 

That appearance launched a new wave of aggregations by conservative media outlets.

Fox’s morning show Fox & Friends hosted Cernekee on Monday where he repeated his allegation that Google intends to prevent Trump’s reelection. 

That interview, in turn, became the basis for a segment on the Monday night edition of Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs Tonight, which aired several hours after the Daily Caller published its story detailing Cernekee’s postings. 

“That is nasty stuff,” the host commented of Cernekee’s allegations, “and by the way, it’s illegal.” He later added that the Justice Department “should be sitting right inside the Google complex” to prevent “a fraud on the American public.” His guest, Breitbart.com’s Peter Schweizer, added that DOJ should be “monitoring what Google is doing in real time now.”

Dobbs’ show attracts fewer than 400,000 viewers on average. But Trump is often one of them, and he was apparently watching Monday night. 

Cernekee’s allegations enter the Trump-Fox feedback loop

Trump is obsessed with Fox, watching hours of its programming every day and frequently tweeting about segments that catch his attention. This Trump-Fox feedback loop regularly influences the Trump administration’s policy, personnel, and political strategy. 

On Monday morning, Trump promised to “honor the sacred memory of those we have lost” during mass shootings in El Paso, TX, and Dayton, OH, by “acting as one people.” That night, he tweeted three clips from Dobbs’ show. Two of the president’s tweets dealt with the program’s discussion of Cernekee’s claim that Google is biased against him. 

The next morning, after tweeting two quotes from the morning’s edition of Fox & Friends, Trump returned to the issue of Google’s bias. 

In a tweetstorm, the president contrasted what he said he had been told by Google CEO Sundar Pichai with what he had heard on Dobbs’ show the previous night, including from Cernekee.

The Trump-Fox feedback loop is particularly salient in giving the president targets for his ire, and the network’s obsession with tech platform bias has repeatedly resulted in angry Trump tweets. This is at least the third time Trump has responded to Fox segments by tweeting that his administration would take action against Google.

In August 2018, in response to a conspiracy-minded Dobbs segment, the president accused Google of illegally “suppressing voices of Conservatives” adding that his administration would address the situation. 

And last month, Trump tweeted that his administration would review whether Google has committed “treason” after he saw a Fox & Friends news brief in which one of his supporters baselessly floated that claim. 

Conservatives have a political and financial interest in ginning up claims that the tech platforms are biased against them, and right-wing media eagerly amplify their claims for their own interests. This pattern will continue and such issues that don’t hold up to scrutiny will be thrust into the mainstream discourse because the president of the United States loves to watch Fox News.

[Media Matters]

Trump blames news media for causing ‘anger and rage’ in wake of domestic terror attack

Donald Trump has blamed what he called “Fake News” for stoking “anger and rage” in the wake of two gun attacks that killed a total of 29 people, one of which is being treated as a case of domestic terrorism.

In a tweet on Monday morning, the president said the media had a responsibility to safeguard “life and safety” in the United States. 

“Fake News has contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years,” he wrote. 

“News coverage has got to start being fair, balanced and unbiased, or these terrible problems will only get worse!”

The tweet came at the end of a string of angry missives about the El Pasoand Dayton mass shootings over the weekend, which saw 29 people shot dead in less than 24 hours. 

Earlier, Mr Trump had thrown his support behind tougher background checks for buying guns, but then insisted any legislation was tied to immigration reform. 

There is no obvious connection between the two shootings and immigration reform. The suspect in El Paso, Patrick Crusius, is believed to be a white nationalist and police are treating the attack as an act of domestic terrorism.

Now, the president has turned his ire on the familiar foe of the media and appeared to accuse journalists of being partly to blame for the epidemic of gun violence which blights America. 

Speaking to reporters just before boarding Air Force One, Mr Trump had offered his condolences to the families of those killed in Dayton and El Paso. 

“We love the people,” he added. “Hate has no place in our country.”

However, earlier Democrats had accused Mr Trump of “sowing seeds of hate” and said he, not the media, was responsible for the wave of right-wing terrorist attacks in recent years.

Cory Booker, a Democratic senator and presidential candidate, told NBC: “You reap what you sow, and he is sowing seeds of hate in this country.

“This harvest of hate violence we’re seeing right now lies at his feet. He is responsible.”

Mr Trump has repeatedly attacked the media since he was elected, condemning almost any critical coverage of his divisive presidency as “fake news”. 

Although the business mogul’s linking of the press with the two shootings appears to simply continue this trend, he is not the first person to connect journalism and gun violence. 

There is some evidence the media’s coverage of mass shootings can lead to a wave of copycat attacks. 

One study from last year by Australian researchers concluded there were spikes in the numbers of shootings in America after a high profile incident is given wall-to-wall exposure on rolling TV news. 

In total, the study suggested 58 per cent of all shootings in the three year sample they examined could be linked to coverage of previous tragedies. 

[The Independent]

Trump Abruptly Drops John Ratcliffe As DNI Nominee Amid Political Headwinds

President Trump abruptly dropped his intention to nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to serve as director of national intelligence on Friday.

Coolness from Senate Republicans and reports in the press about past overstatements about Ratcliffe’s record appear to have prompted the White House to calculate that it was wiser to cut bait now than try to press ahead against those headwinds.

Trump wrote on Twitter that Ratcliffe had been treated “unfairly” in media coverage and that he’d told the congressman it might be easier to just stay in the House.

Trump also wrote that he would announce another nominee to become director of national intelligence “shortly.”

The position is to become vacant with the resignation of Dan Coats, with whom Trump never developed a rapport.

Tensions between the president and the intelligence community also appear to have worsened over the Ratcliffe episode, as people in the spy world made clear via the newspaper coverage how unqualified they believed he is and how unwelcome he would be atop the sprawling alphabet soup of domestic and foreign spy agencies.

The feeling is clearly mutual: The New York Times reported on Friday that Trump has at least once barred Coats’ deputy, Sue Gordon, from the Oval Office and that the White House might attempt to stop her from serving as the interim DNI during the interregnum after Coats’ departure.

Gordon is an intelligence community lifer with some three decades of experience and has served as the day-to-day, hands-on manager. Her supporters faulted what appeared to be a scheme to deny her at least an interim role in the top job, which they argue is owed her by law.

Senate intelligence committee ranking member Mark Warner, D-Va., told the Times the idea of denying Gordon was “outrageous.”

As for Ratcliffe, he thanked Trump in a Twitter post following the one Trump used to announce he would no longer be nominated. Ratcliffe also said he would have been a candid and professional director of national intelligence, following worries that he was being installed as a political lackey.

[NPR]

Pentagon puts $10B contract on hold after Trump swipe at Amazon

The Pentagon is slamming the brakes on its mega-competition to award a $10 billion cloud computing contract after President Donald Trump suggested the Defense Department might have rigged the contest in favor of Amazon, a frequent target of his criticism.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who assumed his post July 23, is now reviewing accusations of unfairness in the fiercely fought competition, the Pentagon announced Thursday, marking the president’s latest incursion into the arcane world of Defense Department contracting. Oracle has reportedly waged an aggressive lobbying campaign to push back on the competition, now pitting Amazon against Microsoft, including talking with members of Congress and preparing a graphic that made its way to the president’s desk.

“Secretary Esper is committed to ensuring our warfighters have the best capabilities, including Artificial Intelligence, to remain the most lethal force in the world, while safeguarding taxpayer dollars,” Elissa Smith, a Pentagon spokesperson, said in a statement Thursday. “Keeping his promise to Members of Congress and the American public, Secretary Esper is looking at the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) program. No decision will be made on the program until he has completed his examination.”

The latest scrape once again pits Trump against Amazon, whose founder and CEO Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post and has become a growing powerbroker in the D.C. region.

The review is expected to delay the award of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract, which the Pentagon had hoped to award in August. JEDI would give the Pentagon a single, secure cloud computing system for data ranging from personnel statistics to intelligence information, instead of the more than 500 clouds used by different parts of the military today.

The contracting process has been plagued by controversy that pre-dates Trump’s involvement, including allegations by rival bidders that the competition unfairly favored Amazon because of perceived conflicts of interest. Companies have also raised issues with the Pentagon’s decision to choose just one company for the contract, citing a lack of competition and security concerns. Four companies — Oracle, IBM Corp., Amazon and Microsoft — initially bid for the winner-take-all contract. Amazon and Microsoft are the only two finalists.

[Politico]

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