At Anthropic’s first court hearing challenging sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, the AI tech startup asked the government to commit that it wouldn’t levy additional penalties on the company. That didn’t happen.
“I am not prepared to offer any commitments on that issue,” James Harlow, a Justice Department attorney, told US district judge Rita Lin over video conference on Tuesday.
In fact, the government is gearing up to take another step designed to sideline the company from doing business with federal agencies. President Trump is currently finalizing an executive order that would formally ban usage of Anthropic tools across the government, according to a person at the White House familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it. Axios first reported on the plan.
Tuesday’s hearing stemmed from one of the two federal lawsuits Anthropic filed against the Trump administration on Monday, alleging that the government unconstitutionally designated it a supply-chain risk and turned it into a tech industry pariah. Billions of dollars in revenue for Anthropic is now at risk, with current customers and prospective ones dropping out of deals and demanding new terms, according to the company.
Anthropic seeking a preliminary court order suspending the risk designation and barring the administration from taking further punitive measures against the company.
The court appearance on Tuesday was to decide on the schedule for a preliminary hearing, and Anthropic is eager for it to happen soon to prevent further harm to its business. Michael Mongan, an attorney for Anthropic at WilmerHale, told Lin he was less concerned about delaying it until April if the Trump administration could commit to not taking additional action. “The actions of defendants are causing irreparable injuries, and those injuries are mounting day by day,” Mongan said.
After Harlow declined, Lin moved up the date of the hearing to March 24 in San Francisco, though that timeline was still later than Anthropic wanted. “The case is quite consequential from both sides, and I want to make sure I’m deciding on an expedited record but also a full record,” the judge said.
Scheduling in the other case, which is in Washington, DC, is on hold while Anthropic pursues an administrative appeal to the Department of Defense, 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 current technologies being used by the military for any lawful purpose, which it fears could include broad surveillance of Americans and the launch of missiles without human supervision. The Defense Department contends usage decisions are its prerogative.
Several attorneys with expertise in government contracts and the US Constitution believe the administration’s action against Anthropic continues 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). The experts believe Anthropic should prevail, but the challenge will be overcoming the deference that courts often give to national security arguments from the government, especially during times of war.
“If this is a one-off, you might give the president some deference,” says Harold Hongju Koh, a Yale Law School professor who worked in the Barack Obama presidential administration and has written about the Anthropic case. “But now, it’s just unmistakable that this is just the latest in a chain of events 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 sanction Anthropic were designed to protect the country from potential sabotage by its enemies.
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