Appeals Court Upholds Pentagon's Blacklisting of Anthropic

A federal appeals court panel in Washington, D.C., on Friday upheld the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic, dealing a setback to the artificial intelligence company in its months-long dispute with the Trump administration.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected Anthropic's argument that the Department of Defense's ban on its Claude models was arbitrary, unauthorized and unconstitutional.

"The Department had ample support for its conclusion that the continued integration of Claude into the Department's information systems, by the Department or its contractors, presented a statutorily covered national-security risk," Judge Gregory Katsas wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Judge Neomi Rao. Both Katsas and Rao were appointed by President Donald Trump.

The ruling represents a significant win for the Pentagon in its effort to restrict certain AI systems from its information infrastructure on national-security grounds. Anthropic had challenged the designation, arguing the government lacked adequate justification and had overstepped its legal authority.

Details of the dissenting opinion, the specific national-security concerns cited by the Department of Defense, and Anthropic's next steps were not fully available in the source material. This report will be updated as more information becomes available and can be independently verified.