In a complaint filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Amazon said Trump launched "repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer" the Pentagon cloud contract called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, popularly known as JEDI, away from Amazon Web Services.

Amazon moaned that Trump’s motive was to “harm his perceived political enemy-Jeffrey P. Bezos, founder and CEO of AWS’s parent company, Amazon.com and owner of the Washington Post.”

Trump’s interference made it impossible for the Pentagon to judge a winner “reasonably, consistently, and in a fair and equal manner,” Amazon said.

Trump has long criticised Bezos and Amazon over low tax payments and accused the Washington Post of acting as a lobbyist for Bezos and Amazon and spreading “fake news.”

Amazon called for a reevaluation of the proposals submitted to the Pentagon and a new award decision.

“The question is whether the President of the United States should be allowed to use the budget of DoD to pursue his own personal and political ends,” the 103-page complaint said.

A challenge to the Defense Department’s award announced in October was widely expected by legal experts, analysts and consultants, especially after Trump publicly derided Amazon’s bid for the high-stakes contract.