Judge Grants Anthropic Partial Summary Judgment in Trump Administration Lawsuit

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin issued a 59-page ruling granting Anthropic partial summary judgment in its lawsuit against the Trump administration. According to ChainCatcher, Lin found that the government unlawfully retaliated against Anthropic after it publicly رفضed to let the military use Claude for mass surveillance of U.S. citizens and lethal autonomous warfare tasks, violating the First Amendment, due process, and the Administrative Procedure Act. Lin also vacated the related designation and Defense Secretary Hegseth's restriction order, and she issued a permanent injunction. The dispute began after the Pentagon asked Anthropic to remove all usage limits and accept a clause allowing all lawful uses, while Anthropic kept its final two red lines. On February 27, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using the company's technology, and Hegseth later barred any military contractor from doing business with it. The government dropped key arguments during the case and acknowledged that Anthropic had no backdoor access to deployed models and that Claude's risk was no higher than other black-box systems. Lin said national security is not a blank check for punishment and noted that the government had been operating under a preliminary injunction since March without identifying any harm. Anthropic did not win on all claims, as the court rejected its argument that Trump's directive exceeded presidential authority. The company told the court that if the measures continued, defense-related revenue could fall by 50% to 100%, and overall 2026 revenue could lose billions of dollars.