Judge Rita Lin of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has ruled that the Trump administration's retaliatory actions against Anthropic are illegal. The judge invalidated the government's measure to designate the company as a supply chain risk and ordered the revocation of the directive.
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U.S. Federal Court Rules Trump Administration's Blacklisting of Anthropic Illegal
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The lawsuit was filed by Anthropic, which alleged that the measures were retaliation for the company's refusal to allow its AI, "Claude," to be used for military purposes or mass surveillance. Judge Lin pointed out that the government's actions constitute unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had ordered all federal agencies to permanently cease the use of Anthropic products and prohibited defense contractors from doing business with the company. While the ruling acknowledged the military's right to freely select vendors, it stated that the broad measures in question were unfounded and illegal.
The government had argued that Anthropic's technology could potentially provide backdoors into national security systems. However, the ruling stated that the government itself acknowledged that the company does not have such access rights and that its technology does not pose a unique risk compared to other AI models.
Source: Trump blacklisting of "woke" Anthropic deemed illegal by federal judge (Ars Technica AI, 2026-08-29)