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The months-long dispute between Amazon, Microsoft, and the Department of Defense over a $10 billion cloud computing contract is at a standstill, as the Pentagon reconsiders aspects of its decision to award the deal to Microsoft.

The Department of Defense last year chose Microsoft for its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) deal, a massive cloud project that will store and manage sensitive military and defense data considered by many as an upset for Amazon's market-leading cloud business Amazon Web Services.

Amazon, a regular target of President Donald Trump, challenged the decision in federal court on the basis that its technology is so superior to Microsoft's that the process had to have been affected by political interference. Trump reportedlywanted to "scuttle" the bidding process for JEDI for fear that Amazon Web Services might win.

Microsoft disagrees with Amazon's allegations, saying that its rival is seeking a "do-over" after losing the deal fair and square.

The Pentagon's inspector general dealt a blow to Amazon's claims when it recently cleared the JEDI decision, despite saying it couldn't fully investigate Trump's role because the White House barred key witnesses from cooperating. The report cited ethical violations on behalf of Pentagon officials, but said they ultimately didn't impact the decision.

Meanwhile, the lawsuit is on hold while the Pentagon reevaluates its decision and is scheduled to resume later this summer.

Now, according to experts, if Amazon has any shot at the contract, it lies with whether a seemingly small error by the Department of Defense is indicative of a flawed procurement process and how eager the Pentagon is to get to work on the contract.

In its challenge to the Pentagon's decision, Amazon blamed President Donald Trump's "repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks" and alleged Trump influenced the Pentagon's decision in order to serve "his own personal and political ends" and harm Bezos, "his perceived political enemy."

In one allegation, a former Defense Secretary James Mattis staff member wrote a book in which he said Trump ordered Mattis to "screw Amazon" out of the contract in the summer of 2018.

Asked whether Trump told him he didn't want Amazon to get the contract, Mattis told the Pentagon inspector general: "I don't recall that. It could have happened but I just don't recall those words. Again, I knew his dissatisfaction with Amazon. I mean I knew that loud and clear."

The Pentagon inspector general investigated, and released the results in a recent report, clearing the Defense Department's decision to give the award to Microsoft.

Amazon, which declined an interview for this story, blasted the conclusion, calling it "yet another blatant attempt to avoid a meaningful and transparent review of the JEDI contract award," in a recent statement to Business Insider.

The inspector general did, however, find Pentagon officials made ethical violations, but in the end the office decided they did not influence the outcome of the contract.

"I can't think of another procurement ever where the nonstop litany of inappropriate ethical behavior and conflicts of interest produced such a steady drumbeat," said Steven Schooner, a George Washington University professor who is considered a top expert in government procurement law.

The investigation concluded Pentagon official Deap Ubhi was negotiating a job with Amazon while working on the JEDI contract. He failed to disclose the employment negotiations to department officials, according to the report, and "lied three times to Amazon and DoD officials about his negotiations with Amazon for employment." The inspector general concluded Ubhi's involvement was early and brief and did not impact the outcome of the process.

The report also finds that another Pentagon official, Stacy Cummings, failed to disclose she owned as much as $50,000 worth of Microsoft stock when she participated in meetings and made recommendations related to the contract, but the Pentagon inspector general concluded the conflict did not impact the award decision.

While the Pentagon inspector general's findings dealt a blow to Amazon's claims of political interference, Amazon likely took some comfort in the fact that a federal judge ruled that its lawyers will likely be able to prove the Department of Defense made an error in evaluating an aspect of Microsoft's proposal and that the error affected the outcome.

When the Department of Defense solicited bidders for JEDI, a requirement for one aspect of the proposal was for online storage to be "highly accessible." Amazon alleges Microsoft's proposal did not meet that requirement.

That might seem like a small thing, but Amazon alleges it should have been enough to eliminate Microsoft from the competition. The judge said Amazon is likely to be able to prove the DoD improperly evaluated Microsoft's proposal, and that Amazon's "chance of securing the award was not insubstantial absent the error."

The error is what drove the Pentagon to request a remand of the case, which a federal judge this month granted, pausing the dispute for 120 days until August. Amazon opposed the remand, arguing the Pentagon intends only to give Microsoft a do-over.

Microsoft, which declined an interview for this story, has said the judge focused on one small aspect of the JEDI contract, and said Microsoft the Department of Defense carefully evaluated the proposal based on many factors and selected Microsoft's as "significantly superior."

Schooner, the government procurement expert, said those kinds of errors are relatively common and unlikely related to any allegations of political interference. Amazon's case in some respects now lies whether this apparent error is just one example of flaws in the procurement process.

"The biggest wildcard in all of this is we don't know," he said. "Amazon's fear is that it's just the one thing, because if it's the one thing, the DoD could be capable of getting around that."

Putting pressure on all of this is the judge's decision to delay the start of the contract until the legal dispute is resolved. Dan Ives, a Wedbush Securities analyst and close watcher of the JEDI dispute, said that could force the Pentagon's hand.

The Pentagon has spent years on the procurement process to find a cloud vendor, and the contract is for 10 years.

"It's a quagmire for the DoD because it's such an important initiative," Ives told Business Insider. "Ultimately, the DoD potentially could be forced in terms of just wanting to get this thing rolling or just continuing to battle Amazon in the courts."

Are you an Amazon Web Services or Microsoft employee?Contact this reporter via email atastewart@businessinsider.com, message her on Twitter @ashannstew, or send her a secure message through Signal at 425-344-8242.

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Amazon's next best bet to take the $10 billion JEDI cloud deal from Microsoft hinges on a 'wildcard' error in the process after a Pentagon...