On August 28, 2026, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Trump administration’s designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain security risk was ‘arbitrary and capricious’ and amounted to unlawful retaliation for the company’s refusal to strip safety guardrails from Claude for military use. Lin found the government offered no legitimate national-security basis for the designation and that Anthropic lacked any technical ability to sabotage deployed systems, also finding the company was denied due process. The ruling nullifies the designation, though the government is expected to appeal, and a narrower related case remains pending before a federal appeals court.
