A federal judge on July 30 said the Defense Department (DOD) has not produced sufficient evidence to justify its designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk, as both parties seek summary judgment in the AI company’s legal challenge to the designation.
“I don’t see additional evidence from the government really justifying what it did. If anything, it seems like the record, in some ways, has gotten worse for the government,” Lin said at Thursday’s hearing in San Francisco.
The case has become a closely watched test of the government’s authority to restrict AI providers from federal networks on national security grounds.
Lin questioned the government’s assertion that Anthropic posed a supply-chain risk because it could modify its AI models after they had been deployed.
“I don’t see evidence that Anthropic could alter the model after it was delivered or flip some kind of kill switch,” Lin said.
Thursday’s hearing marked the parties’ second appearance before Lin. During a March hearing, she called the government’s treatment of Anthropic “troubling” and said it appeared to be “an attempt to cripple Anthropic.”
Lin later issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the supply-chain risk designation, finding that Anthropic had demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits and would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction.
However, the ruling did not require the DOD to retain Anthropic technology on its networks, and the department has continued removing the company’s software from defense systems while the litigation proceeds.
The dispute stems from disagreements over how the DOD intended to use Anthropic’s Claude AI models. DOD sought to use Claude for “all lawful purposes,” including the most sensitive military and intelligence applications. Anthropic objected to two uses: mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. The dispute escalated after President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to sever ties with Anthropic, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the company a supply-chain risk.
Anthropic subsequently filed two lawsuits alleging unlawful retaliation. The administration has defended the designation as a lawful national security measure.
The lawsuits have produced differing rulings on the government’s authority to restrict Anthropic’s technology.
Lin is considering a final ruling in California, following the preliminary injunction. Meanwhile, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit during parallel proceedings after it previously declined to halt the Pentagon’s restrictions.
The differing approaches could ultimately send the dispute to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Regardless of the litigation’s outcome, the Pentagon’s transition away from Anthropic technology is continuing.
Under the president’s directive, defense components and defense industrial base partners must remove all Anthropic software from their networks by Sept. 29, 2026.
DOD Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael recently said the department has completed roughly two-thirds of its transition from Anthropic-based infrastructure to competing providers.
Michael said alternative platforms, including OpenAI and Google Gemini, are being deployed across classified networks with minimal disruption.
Under the Trump administration, the DOD adopted War Department as a secondary title following a presidential executive order.