Nathaniel Whittemore

Now, the order did recognize the urgency of the case, and the court has scheduled oral arguments for mid-May.

The court also acknowledged that Anthropic is likely to, quote, suffer some irreparable harm as a result of the case.

Now, you might recall that Anthropic was granted an injunction from a California court early in March.

Importantly, there's actually two separate lawsuits going on, dealing with two separate legislative powers invoked by the government.

The California injunction means that non-Pentagon government agencies don't need to cancel contracts with Anthropic.

The new ruling deals with the Pentagon exclusively and allows them to treat Anthropic as a supply chain risk.

What's less clear is how military contractors in the private sector are supposed to deal with Anthropic, as both lawsuits deal with that issue to some extent.

Roger Parloff, the senior editor at Lawfare, shared his view that for the moment, government contractors can probably use Anthropic's technology for anything but covered government contracts.

He also noted that Anthropic's models have already been restored to USAI.gov, the central platform served by the General Services Administration.

Importantly, this was just a preliminary ruling that has a very high bar for success, so is not necessarily a strong indication on how the case will ultimately resolve.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch called the ruling a resounding victory for military readiness.

He wrote, "...our position has been clear from the start.

Our military needs full access to Anthropix models if its technology is integrated into our sensitive systems.

Military authority and operational control belong to the Commander-in-Chief and Department of War, not a tech company."

An anthropic spokesperson, meanwhile, said, We're grateful the court recognized these issues need to be resolved quickly and remain confident the courts will ultimately agree that these supply chain designations were unlawful.

In understated fashion, Matt Schreurs, the chief executive of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, commented, The D.C.

Circuit's denial will prolong ambiguities regarding whether political considerations can drive federal procurement.

Charlie Bullock, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Law and AI, told the information he was unsurprised by the result, noting, Two out of the three judges on the D.C.

Circuit panel have been very, very sympathetic to the Trump administration's aggressive claims about executive authority in the past.

Expanding his analysis on X, Bullock noted that the case is moving quickly and could receive a final order within six weeks.