Anthropic lost its appeal. A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., upheld the Pentagon’s designation of the company as a supply chain risk on September 25, 2026, leaving the related restrictions in place.
The ruling came from a 2-1 decision, with Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas and Circuit Judge Neomi Rao forming the majority. Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented, giving Anthropic one vote on its side but not the outcome it wanted.
The majority rejected Anthropic’s argument that the Department of Defense acted arbitrarily, exceeded its authority, and violated the Constitution when it designated the company a supply chain risk. The court’s decision allows the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic to stand.
A Split Court Upholds the Pentagon’s Position
The case turned on the Department’s assessment of Anthropic’s continued role in its information systems. The court held that the Department had enough support for concluding that Claude’s continued integration created a national-security risk covered by statute.
Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas wrote: “The Department had ample support for its conclusion that the continued integration of Claude into the Department’s information systems, by the Department or its contractors, presented a statutorily covered national-security risk.”
That sentence supplies the ruling’s core logic. The Pentagon did not need to show that Claude itself had caused a security incident; the decision rests on the Department’s conclusion that continued integration into its systems, whether by the Department or its contractors, presented a covered risk.
The ruling therefore preserves the Department’s ability to keep Anthropic on its supply chain risk list. It also rejects Anthropic’s challenge to the decision as arbitrary, unauthorized, and unconstitutional — three objections that failed before the two-judge majority.
What the Decision Leaves in Place
The appeals court’s action does not merely settle the designation on paper. The Pentagon’s restrictions remain in place, and the Department’s determination continues to apply to the integration of Claude into Department information systems by the Department or its contractors.
The 2-1 split also makes the decision less tidy than a unanimous ruling. Katsas and Rao accepted the Pentagon’s position, while Henderson dissented; the court still upheld the designation, but the disagreement is part of the ruling’s record.
For Anthropic, the result is a failed effort to remove the Pentagon’s blacklisting through the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. For the Department of Defense, it is judicial approval of its conclusion that Anthropic’s place in its information systems could present a statutorily covered national-security risk.
The decision keeps the dispute focused on government authority and system integration rather than on the general merits of Claude. The court upheld the Department’s designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk, not a universal judgment about every use of the company’s technology.
That distinction matters because the ruling identifies a specific government action and a specific security rationale: the continued integration of Claude into Department information systems by the Department or its contractors. The Pentagon’s restrictions survive, Anthropic’s legal challenge fails, and the dissent remains the lone objection in a 2-1 decision.
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