“I’m not prepared to give any commitments on that issue,” Justice Department lawyer James Harlow told U.S. District Judge Rita Lynn in a video conference Tuesday.
In fact, the government is preparing to take another step to bar the company from doing business with federal agencies. According to a White House person familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it, President Trump is currently finalizing an executive order that would formally ban the use of anthropometric tools across the entire government. Axios first reported the plan.
Tuesday’s hearing stems from one of two federal lawsuits filed by Anthropic on Monday against the Trump administration, alleging that the government unconstitutionally designated it as a supply-chain risk and turned it into a tech industry pariah. According to the company, Anthropic’s billions of dollars in revenue are now at risk, as current customers and potential customers are abandoning deals and demanding new terms.
Anthropic sought a preliminary court order to suspend the risk designation and prevent the administration from taking further punitive steps against the company.
The court appearance on Tuesday was to decide on the schedule of a preliminary hearing, and Anthropic is eager to do so soon to avoid further damage to its business. Michael Mongan, an attorney for Anthropic in WilmerHale, told Lynn he is less concerned about delaying it until April if the Trump administration can commit to not taking additional action. “The defendants’ actions are causing irreparable injuries, and those injuries are increasing by the day,” Mongan said.
After Harlow refused, Lynn moved the hearing date to March 24 in San Francisco, although that deadline was still later than Anthropic’s wishes. The judge said, “The case is of considerable importance from both sides, and I want to ensure that I am deciding on the expeditious record as well as on the complete record.”
Scheduling in the second case, which is in Washington, D.C., is on hold while Anthropic files an administrative appeal at the Defense Department, which is expected to fail on Wednesday.
The months-long dispute between the Pentagon and Anthropic began when the AI startup refused to sign off on its existing technologies being used by the military for any legitimate purpose, which it feared could include mass surveillance of Americans and launching missiles without human supervision. The Defense Department argues that use decisions are its prerogative.
Many lawyers specializing in government contracts and the US Constitution believe that the administration’s actions against Anthropic continue a pattern of abusing the law to punish perceived political enemies, including universities, media companies, and law firms (such as WilmerHale, the firm representing Anthropic). Experts believe Anthropic should prevail, but the challenge will be overcoming the deference that courts often give to national security arguments on behalf of the government, especially in times of war.
“If it’s a one-off, you can give the president some respect,” says Harold Hongju Koh, a Yale Law School professor who worked in Barack Obama’s presidential administration and has written about the Anthropic case. “But now, it is absolutely clear that this is the latest in a series of incidents related to a punitive presidency.”
David Super, a Georgetown University Law Center professor who studies the Constitution, says the provisions the Defense Department used to approve Anthropic were designed to protect the country from potential subversion by its enemies.
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