The 2-1 ruling, issued Friday, rejected Anthropic's challenge of the designation, finding the Department of Defense had "ample support" for its belief that the continued use of Anthropic's Claude models by the agency or its contractors presented a national security risk.
The three-judge panel in D.C. specifically took up the question of whether the Pentagon and Secretary Pete Hegseth had the legal authority under a statute of the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act (FASCA) to declare Anthropic a supply chain risk.
"The Department reasonably feared that Anthropic might manipulate Claude’s design to prevent it from performing national-security functions that the Department deems contractually authorized and necessary," Circuit Judge Gregory Kastas wrote for the majority.
Anthropic sued the Trump administration in March, challenging both the Pentagon’s designation — typically reserved for foreign adversaries — and President Trump’s directive for civilian agencies to stop using Anthropic’s products after negotiations fell apart over safety guardrails earlier this year.
Anthropic requested its technology not be used in fully autonomous lethal weapons or for the mass surveillance of Americans, while the Pentagon insisted it be allowed to use Anthropic's Claude for "all lawful uses."
"Because Anthropic was willing and able to enforce contractual restrictions through model training, the Department reasonably worried that 'critical defense system' supported by Claude might 'fail to engage' as the Department would expect," Kastas wrote.
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