Law Commons^™

Enhanced Debriefings: A Toothless Mandate?, Steven L. Schooner

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This short piece discusses the (alleged) manner in which the Department of Defense (DoD) conducted the disappointed offeror's post-award debriefing following the award of the $10 billion, $10-year Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contracting opportunity. While the quality of DoD’s debriefing is unlikely to alter the outcome in the pending protest litigation, it seems inconsistent with policy, the current trend favoring greater transparency, and the recent Congressional mandate for “enhanced debriefings.”

The piece suggests that, consistent with decades of study and experience, debriefings make sense, but only if they are informative or, more to the point, responsive. Conversely, …

Postscript Ii: Enhanced Debriefings, Steven L. Schooner

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This short piece, which supplements the discussion from February 2020 (also on SSRN) discusses the Department of Defense (DoD) post-award debriefing of the disappointed offeror (Amazon) following the award (to Microsoft) of the $10 billion, $10-year Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contracting opportunity.

This supplemental discussion derives from the extraordinary, 300+ page, DoD Inspector General review and report on the procurement (issued in April 2020) and highlights a number of the surprises in the IG report, including: DoD's assertion of a “presidential communications privilege” to avoid responding to inquiries related to alleged White House influence of the procurement; …