Hegseth, Trump had no authority to order Anthropic to be blacklisted, judge says

They accused Anthropic of trying to use the DoW dispute to spin up positive press, and Trump joined the chorus. On Truth Social, he labeled Anthropic a “radical left, woke company,” allegedly putting their “selfishness” above national security. Following Trump’s post, Hegseth took to X, writing that “Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.”

In both posts, officials claimed that orders to blacklist Anthropic were effective immediately, but neither cited what authority they had to do so.

During oral arguments, a government lawyer later admitted that “he was not aware of any statute that gave Secretary Hegseth the authority to issue such a prohibition and agreed that the statement had ‘absolutely no legal effect at all,’” Lin wrote. Further, “when asked why Hegseth made a public statement that had no legal effect and that did not reflect the immediate intent of DoW, counsel stated, ‘I don’t know.’”

Perhaps most glaringly, Hegseth seemed to contradict himself when arguing that Anthropic at once “presented a grave threat to national security” requiring a supply-chain risk designation and also “Anthropic was essential to national security” and could be compelled to provide services under the Defense Production Act.

The only reason that the government gave for labeling Anthropic a national security risk was that the company could supposedly update their products and compromise systems. They claimed that Anthropic would be motivated to sabotage the military as retaliation for the directives.

But Lin didn’t find that likely, either, since any other IT provider could potentially introduce the same risks. More importantly, Anthropic showed unrebutted evidence that it would be impossible to force updates or otherwise control the government’s systems. To the judge, any national security risk could be foreclosed by simply ending the military’s contract with Anthropic, which Anthropic had already agreed would be understandable.