Top Amazon Boss Privately Advised US Government on Web Portal Worth Billions To Tech Firm (theguardian.com)

A top Amazon executive privately advised the Trump administration on the launch of a new internet portal that is expected to generate billions of dollars for the technology company and give it a dominant role in how the US government buys everything from paper clips to office chairs. From a report: Emails seen by the Guardian show that the Amazon executive Anne Rung communicated with a top official at the Government Services Authority (GSA) about the approach the government would take to create the new portal, even before the legislation that created it -- known to its critics as the "Amazon amendment" -- was signed into law late last year. Amazon and the Trump administration appear to have an antagonistic relationship because of the president's frequent Twitter attacks on the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post. But the behind-the-scenes lobbying by Amazon officials underscores how the company has quietly amassed an unrivalled position of power with the federal government.

The 2017 correspondence between Rung -- a former official in the Obama administration credited with transforming the federal government's procurement policies before she joined Amazon -- and Mary Davie at the GSA, offers new insights into how Amazon has used key former government officials it now employs -- directly and as consultants -- to gain influence and potentially shape lucrative government contracts. It has not yet been determined which companies will build the US government's new e-commerce portal, but Amazon is widely expected to take on a dominant role, giving it a major foothold in the $53bn market for federal procurement of commercial products.

Comments

Rungs

[mentil]

Amazon executive Anne Rung

I bet her coworkers are willing to step on her in order to climb the corporate ladder.

Federal procurement is a hot mess

[MikeRT]

I think the procurement kabuki is a key part of why there is a lot of malaise in the federal workforce. It takes an incredible amount of paperwork compared to the private sector to do something as simple as drop $50k on new IT equipment that has been identified as a key need. For example, you can't just do this:

Government PM: "Mr. Contracts Officer I have 20 contractors onboarding over the next 6 weeks. I need 20 new laptops, 20 new monitors and 20 new keyboard/mouse setups."
Contracts Officer: "Sounds good, I'll call John Smith at Dell after lunch and arrange a purchase order. I'll tell him to expedite the shipping so the first new hires hit the ground running."

That is what the public would like. That is also what would get both parties sent to prison for violating multiple procurement statutes.

But hey, no appearance of impropriety if we can beat you unconscious with the paperwork.

Re:Federal procurement is a hot mess

[DalM]

That's not true at all.

The whole point of the GSA program is to streamline services. When you have an approved GSA schedule, the government has pre-negotiated rates for your services (It's a complicated process, whereby the company has to promise to give the Federal Government their lowest prices. It's actually illegal to provide a lower price to anyone else.) That contract officer you mention *can* in fact pick up the phone and call and call any GSA technology supplier and order the equipment based on the pre-negotiated rates.

Granted, the specific ask you mention for laptops would probably have to be procured competitive bid since it's unlikely any supplier would have pre-negotiated rates for whatever specific laptops they are needing. But, in government, it's pretty rare that jobs just come up out of no where unexpectedly where they need to direct hire 20 people where they couldn't just move some folks around temporarily from other projects. And even that event would be rare. MOST likely what would happen in your situation is that the government would just contract that particular need that is causing the staffing out to a consultant company that has a GSA schedule, and the consultant can hire who ever they like and buy whatever equipment they like.

And then ...

[GrumpySteen]

30-40 other industry people advised the US government, offering many suggestions on rewriting the amendment to make it more open to other businesses besides Amazon.

And congress listened to them and made changes, which basically made everyone happy except the government contractors who were making a killing selling $37 screws, a $7,622 coffee maker and $640 toilet seats to a government that wasn't allowed to buy from other sources.

And all this happened over a year ago.

Curious

[argStyopa]

I find it interesting that the story repeatedly references "the Trump" administration in attack sentences, but later buried in the text we find out the Amazon exec doing the surreptitious advising...used to be in the Obama administration? (My suggestion is that she's likely simply leveraging personal contacts for personal/corporate enrichment.)

Do you really think Trump had a hand in making Bezos richer? Really? Because there's some cognitive dissonance here: Trump can't be a complete know-nothing boob nincompoop AND ALSO a criminal mastermind meticulously micro-managing the development of an Amazon-favoring web portal?

"But the behind-the-scenes lobbying by Amazon officials underscores how the company has quietly amassed an unrivalled position of power with the federal government. " TBH Amazon has generally amassed an unrivalled position of power WITH ALL OF AMERICAN COMMERCE.

Couple quick questions

[kenh]

1) Amazon offers quality products at reduced prices and delivers customer-focused service - these are the reasons they have been so successful - why shouldn't the federal government consider purchasing goods and services from Amazon, just as countless millions of Americans do?

2) If the woman from Amazon was highly-regarded for revolutionizing government procurement under Obama administration, why does she instantly turn evil when she steps into Amazon?

3) Since when is seeking/accepting advice from industry experts (in this case the woman that used to head this up this department under the previous administration) BEFORE passing legislation considered a bad thing? Better government officials should refuse to speak with industry experts before passing legislation?

It is amazing how a simple story can be twisted to try and attack this administration. At it's roots, this story is very simple:

"Before drafting legislation that will change/revolutionize the way the federal government spends an estimated $53BN/yr on various office supplies, the current administration consulted with the highly regarded woman that previously was credited with revolutionizing government spending."

Yeah, imagine, someone in the Trump administration working with experts from the previous administration to address issues in gov't spending. - those corrupt bastards!

summarized

[astrofurter]

Article summarized: Amazon does same lawfully-crooked things as other megacorps, reaps similarly lucrative rewards.

Re:summarized

[cstacy]

Article summarized: Amazon does same lawfully-crooked things as other megacorps, reaps similarly lucrative rewards.

Lawful-Evil is the term you are looking for.

You know, back when this used to be a geek site...