Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India, on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026.
Ruhani Kaur | Bloomberg | Getty Images
An appeals court in Washington, DC, is expected to hear arguments Tuesday in Anthropic’s case over its removal from the Defense Department’s blacklist, the latest in a months-long standoff between the Pentagon and one of the country’s top intelligence agencies.
The US Department of Justice, on behalf of the DOD, and Anthropic will each have 15 minutes to present their case to a three-judge panel, according to an order earlier this month. Judge Karen Henderson, Judge Gregory Katsas and Judge Neomi Rao will then take the matter under advisement and issue a written opinion.
The hearing will begin at 9:30 am ET on Tuesday.
Anthropic sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the DOD in March after the agency announced that AI was creating supply chain risks, meaning it threatened America’s national security. The label has historically been reserved for foreign adversaries, and requires defense contractors to guarantee that they will not use Anthropic’s Claude models in their work with the military.
The appointment came after months of intense negotiations between Anthropic and the DOD. The DOD wanted Anthropic to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to its models for all official purposes, while Anthropic wanted assurances that its technology would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or mass surveillance at home.
The two sides failed to reach an agreement, and Hegseth shut down Anthropic and vilified the company on social media. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company had “no other option” but to challenge the supply chain risk designation in court.
The DOD continued to use Anthropic models to support its military operations against Iran, and President Donald Trump told CNBC last month that an agreement between the DOD and the initiative is “possible.”
An appeals court rejected Anthropic’s request to temporarily block the appointment in April, meaning it will continue to operate as the case continues. However, jurors agreed to expedite the case as Anthropic “will likely be irreparably harmed” during the trial, according to the order.
In a brief before Tuesday’s hearing, the government said Anthropic “could impose limitations” on its model, which poses an “imminent national security risk.” Hegseth determined that Anthropic “undermines the trust necessary to sustain the relationship,” according to the brief, especially since Anthropic “can use its model to enforce its moral and policy judgments about the appropriate military use of technology.”
Anthropic, in a separate brief, said the idea that it could impose restrictions on future models is unsupported and provides “no basis” for the designation of supply chain risk. The company also claims that Hegseth and the DOD violated the Constitution and existing procedures.
“The court should hold this position unconstitutional,” Anthropic’s lawyers wrote.
In addition to its lawsuit in Washington, DC, Anthropic filed a separate but related lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco. The DOD relies on two separate jurisdictions to justify its supply chain risk action, meaning they must be sued in two separate courts.
Anthropic was granted a preliminary injunction in its San Francisco lawsuit, allowing government agencies other than the DOD to use Anthropic’s models while the lawsuit is pending.
“Nothing in the regulatory framework supports the Orwellian notion that an American corporation may be labeled a potential enemy of the US for expressing disagreement with the government,” the judge wrote.
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