DC Circuit panel upholds Pentagon’s ban on Anthropic – so what comes next?

The Anthropic AI logo appears on a smartphone screen and as the background on a laptop computer screen in this photo illustration in Athens, Greece, on February 24, 2026. (Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Today’s ruling by a three-judge appeals panel against Anthropic in the AI titan’s lawsuit against the Department of Defense is far from the end of the saga, legal experts told Breaking Defense, with Anthropic’s options including further appeals.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia today upheld the Pentagon’s controversial designation of the company’s products as a “supply chain risk” to national security. That decision allows the Pentagon to ban all use of Anthropic AI, not only by its own personnel, but also by private sector employees actively working on defense contracts .

However, today’s ruling does not impact a separate and parallel lawsuit in the Northern District of California, where Judge Rita Lin ruled last month against the Trump administration’s attempt to ban Anthropic from all federal contracts. The DC court ruling, by contrast, only covers the Defense Department ban.

Pentagon CTO Emil Michael, who has led the charge against Anthropic, took to social media to declare that “the hammer of justice has smashed AnthropicAI[’s] arguments. They are a Supply Chain Risk to the defense industrial base [and] warfighters will sleep better knowing that no private company will insert their opinions in the chain of command.”

Anthropic, for its part, released a statement that kept its options open. “We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision. Another federal court has already held the government’s parallel designation unlawful,” the statement said, referring to the California case. “We remain confident in our position and are considering all options, including further review.”

“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 for himself and Judge Naomi Rao , both Trump appointees. “As Anthropic admits, the company encodes restrictions into Claude that prevent the model from performing tasks that Anthropic wishes to prevent. On more than one occasion, these restrictions have stopped Claude from performing tasks requested by government users.”

“I cannot agree that this is the scenario the Congress had in mind when it enacted FASCSA,” the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018, dissented Judge Karen Henderson , an appointee of George H.W. Bush. That Act was explicitly passed to protect against sabotage by malignant foreign powers, she wrote, not a US company openly building safety and ethics guardrails into its products.

“Because of the law that was used to declare them a supply chain risk, the case went straight to the DC Circuit, which is an appellate court,” Charlie Bullock of the Institute for Law & AI explained to Breaking Defense in an exchange on X.com . “The only appeal from there is to the Supreme Court (which doesn’t have to accept appeals; it exercises discretion and generally grants only a small percentage of appeal requests) or to an en banc panel of the D.C. Circuit (also discretionary, also not granted super often).”

However, “if a full panel is granted, all bets are off,” said Sean Timmons , a former JAG Corps officer now at law firm Tully Rincky.

The reason, Timmons said, is that the full DC Circuit Court of Appeals has a mix of Trump, Biden, Obama, and Bush appointees. That makes it much more diverse and unpredictable than the randomly selected three-judge panel that issued today’s ruling, which happened to include two Trump appointees.

“You’ve got two people appointed by Trump [saying] we’re not going to step in and undo a decision based on national security parameters, because national security is the sole prerogative of the chief executive,” Timmons told Breaking Defense. “It’s pretty egregious… but when you invoke national security, the courts are kind of like Pontius Pilate: They just want to wash their hands and walk away.”

However, he went on, the Anthropic case is so high profile and so controversial in the legal community that the full court might feel compelled, not only to grant an appeal, but to overturn the panel’s 2-1 ruling. And if any legal team can make that happen, he added, it’s the one Anthropic has assembled.

Bullock independently arrived at a similar conclusion in his analysis online of the 2-1 panel ruling and further prospects. “This was the expected outcome, given the terrible luck Anthropic had with the panel draw,” he posted . “I would expect Anthropic to win before an en banc DC Circuit and likely even before SCOTUS, but they’re not guaranteed any appeal at all.”

2026年2月24日，在希腊雅典拍摄的这张照片中，Anthropico AI的标志出现在智能手机屏幕上，同时也是笔记本电脑屏幕的背景。（图片由Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images提供）

华盛顿——法律专家告诉《防务新闻》，今天由三名法官组成的上诉小组对人工智能巨头 Anthropic 公司起诉国防部一案作出的裁决远非这场诉讼的结束，Anthropic 公司还有进一步上诉的选择。

美国哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院今天维持了五角大楼备受争议的决定，即认定该公司产品对国家安全构成“供应链风险”。该裁决允许五角大楼禁止一切使用Anthropic AI的产品，不仅包括其自身人员，还包括积极参与国防合同的私营部门雇员。

然而，今天的裁决并不影响加州北区法院审理的另一起平行诉讼。上个月，法官丽塔·林(Rita Lin)驳回了特朗普政府禁止Anthropic公司参与所有联邦合同的企图。相比之下，华盛顿特区法院的裁决仅涉及国防部的禁令。

五角大楼首席技术官埃米尔·迈克尔一直带头反对Anthropic公司，他在社交媒体上宣称：“正义之锤已经粉碎了AnthropicAI的论点。他们对国防工业基础构成供应链风险，作战人员可以安心入睡，因为没有私营公司能够将他们的意见强加于指挥链之上。”

安特罗皮克公司发表声明，表示保留所有选项。“我们不同意法院的裁决。另一家联邦法院已经裁定政府的平行指定违法，”声明中指的是加州的案件。“我们仍然坚持我们的立场，并正在考虑所有选项，包括进一步审查。”

“司法部有充分的理由得出结论，即司法部或其承包商继续将Claude整合到司法部的信息系统中，构成了受法律保护的国家安全风险，”格雷戈里·卡特萨斯法官代表他本人和娜奥米·拉奥法官（两人均为特朗普任命）写道。“正如Anthropic公司承认的那样，该公司在Claude中编码了限制条件，以阻止该模型执行Anthropic公司希望阻止的任务。这些限制条件不止一次地阻止了Claude执行政府用户要求的任务。”

“我无法认同国会在制定《2018年联邦采购供应链安全法案》（FASCSA）时所设想的情况，”乔治·H·W·布什任命的法官凯伦·亨德森持反对意见。她写道，该法案的明确立法目的是为了防范恶意外国势力的破坏，而不是为了防止一家美国公司公开在其产品中构建安全和道德保障措施。

“由于认定他们构成供应链风险所依据的法律，此案直接提交至哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院，这是一个上诉法院，”法律与人工智能研究所的查理·布洛克在接受Breaking Defense在X.com网站上的采访时解释道。“从那里上诉的唯一途径是向最高法院（最高法院并非必须受理上诉；它拥有自由裁量权，通常只批准一小部分上诉请求）或哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院全体法官合议庭（同样由最高法院自由裁量，也并非经常受理）。”

然而，前军法署军官、现任塔利·林基律师事务所律师肖恩·蒂蒙斯表示：“如果批准成立一个完整的专家小组，那就一切都无法预料了。”

蒂蒙斯表示，原因在于哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院的全体法官由特朗普、拜登、奥巴马和布什任命的法官组成。这使得它比今天做出裁决的随机选出的三名法官小组更加多元化，也更难以预测，而今天做出裁决的三名法官中恰好有两名是特朗普任命的。

蒂蒙斯告诉《防务新闻》：“特朗普任命的两个人说，我们不会介入并推翻基于国家安全考量的决定，因为国家安全是行政长官的专属特权。这非常离谱……但当你援引国家安全时，法院就像本丢·彼拉多一样：他们只想洗洗手，然后走人。”

然而，他接着说，Anthropic案在法律界备受瞩目且极具争议，以至于最高法院全体法官不仅可能受理上诉，而且可能推翻小组2比1的裁决。他还补充道，如果说有哪个律师团队能够做到这一点，那非Anthropic组建的这支团队莫属。

布洛克在对2比1小组裁决及后续前景的在线分析中，也独立得出了类似的结论。他写道：“考虑到Anthropic公司在小组抽签中运气不佳，这样的结果在意料之中。我预计Anthropic公司会在哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院全体法官审理后胜诉，甚至有可能在最高法院胜诉，但他们完全无法保证能够上诉。”