Writing about how Mattis always tried to translate the president's demands into ethical, well-meaning outcomes, Snodgrass reveals that Trump called Mattis in the summer of 2018 and directed him to "screw Amazon" out of a chance to bid on a $10 billion cloud networking contract.
Trump has long held a grudge against Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post. He's accused Amazon of scamming the Postal Service (it's not), and has railed against The Post as a "lobbying tool for Amazon," often after the paper reports on news unfavorable to the president.
Snodgrass writes: "Relaying the story to us during Small Group, Mattis said, 'We're not going to do that. This will be done by the book, both legally and ethically."
That contract award is still in dispute, at the direction of The White House.
That last bit needs updating....the Pentagon awarded the contract to Microsoft yesterday...
