WASHINGTON, D.C. (Breaking Defense) — By blasting Anthropic on social media and in the press, President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other top officials have given the AI titan a ton of ammunition to overturn administration’s attempt to sanction Anthropic as a “supply chain risk,” legal experts told Breaking Defense.
These statements, four experts agreed, could undercut what could have been a strong case for the government — and at a crucial time: The two sides are preparing for a key hearing Tuesday afternoon, when a judge will decide whether to grant Anthropic an injunction that would pause the Pentagon’s punishments from going into effect.
Those DoD sanctions came after negotiations between the company and the Pentagon broke down over contract language governing permissible uses. Pentagon officials publicly declared Anthropic an unreliable partner and ordered an end to any use of its products, not only within the Defense Department, but by any contractor working on a defense contract. Trump further banned Anthropic’s use by any federal agency. Anthropic filed two lawsuits on March 9, one seeking to overturn the Pentagon supply-chain-risk designation and the other to reverse Trump’s government-wide ban.
“Anthropic’s got a strong case, stronger than it should,” said Sean Timmons, a former military JAG who now represents troops and veterans against the government. “And the case is strong primarily because the President’s made ‘admissions against interest,’” he said, meaning public statements that are admissible for the opposing side to cite in court.
Indeed, “if you read Anthropic’s complaints, they lean very heavily on statements by Pentagon officials, both on social media and stuff anonymous officials have been quoted in the press,” said Charlie Bullock of the Institute for Law & AI. “Courts do generally give the Pentagon a lot of deference when it comes to national security decisions, and that’s what makes me think the Pentagon has a chance. [But] I would give Anthropic greater than 50 percent odds of securing some kind of preliminary injunction.”
The court will have to consider extensive social media postings by Trump, Hegseth, Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, and even acting Under Secretary of State Jeremy Lewin. Trump denounced “the Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic,” Hegseth spoke of the company’s “arrogance and betrayal,” and Michael called its CEO “a liar [with] a God-complex.”
Without such “statements against interest” in the record, the government would have had a huge advantage, the experts agreed. Even with them, Timmons argued, “Anthropic is running uphill because the government’s given a lot of leeway [and] the courts are excessively deferential.”
Contrary to some of Anthropic’s loftier arguments that it’s being unconstitutionally punished for exercising its freedom of speech, for example, an agency can even decide to cancel a contract solely because a contractor publicly voiced its disagreement with administration policy, he said: “The First Amendment protects speech, but it doesn’t compel the government to give you money.”
Also, in this particular case, the relevant statutes give federal agencies wide latitude to determine whether a company is “supply chain risk.”
The Defense Department in particular even has the authority (under Title 10, Sec. 3252) to declare its reasons are classified on grounds of national security and therefore cannot be subjected to judicial review.
