Two federal officials, two verdicts on Anthropic

Anthropic collected two opposite verdicts from the Trump administration in the space of two days. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg on Wednesday that the company and the government were "in tune together", and on Thursday Pentagon research and engineering leader Emil Michael posted that Anthropic "is still a designated supply chain risk" at the department and within the defense industrial base, as reported by FedScoop.

At a glance

• The two positions rest on separate legal tracks: U.S. Judge Rita Lin vacated one designation on Aug. 27, while a second, made under a different statute, remains under review in the D.C. Circuit.
• Federal buying continued through the dispute: the Department of Energy's top IT official told FedScoop that "everybody wants" Claude, and SAM.gov records show FCC delivery orders with Carahsoft in May and July.
• Simona Grossi of Loyola Law School, who filed an amicus brief supporting Anthropic, said the mixed messaging burdens the company because other parties may avoid deals for fear of becoming the administration's next target.

Procurement officers across the federal government now have to weigh a cabinet secretary's warmth against a Pentagon official's warning, and the difference is not rhetorical: one side signs delivery orders, the other maintains a designation that reaches into the defense industrial base. The contradiction appears to be structural rather than tactical, since the two statements describe different statutes and different agencies. For Anthropic, the practical cost falls on buyers outside the dispute who have no clean signal to follow.

Judge Rita Lin cited the government's use of Anthropic's Mythos model in her Aug. 27 ruling

Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law studies at George Washington University Law School, said of the two statements that the contradiction is real: "It seems contradictory because it is." She added that none of this has made sense because designating Anthropic as a supply chain risk never made sense.

Tillipman pointed to earlier Pentagon statements about Anthropic that landed alongside reports that the National Security Agency, part of the Defense Department, was using the company's Mythos model. In her Aug. 27 ruling, Lin cited that use in concluding that the administration's stated national security concerns were not earnest, and she also vacated Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's directive implementing a secondary boycott against Anthropic among military contractors.

The D.C. Circuit challenge targets a designation made under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act

Legal experts told FedScoop that Michael is likely referring to Anthropic's active challenge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Anthropic filed that petition at the same time as its district court complaint, challenging a designation that rests on a different statute.

Grossi said Michael's reference to a designation for the industrial base needs more explanation, since the determination at issue was made under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act, a statute covering federal procurements broadly. Whether it can be implemented alongside the injunction is a question for the government, she said.

Anthropic argues in the circuit case that Lin's decision on the supply chain risk designation is "persuasive authority" for the challenges pending there, and how the district ruling applies is already contested. The government entered its disagreement on the same day Michael published his post, and its appeal of the preliminary injunction is on hold in the Ninth Circuit while the appellate case proceeds.

The Energy Department bought Claude in 2024 and the FCC signed two delivery orders

Other agencies have continued to move ahead with Anthropic's tools. The Department of Energy's top IT official told FedScoop that "everybody wants" Claude and that the agency first purchased it in 2024, while SAM.gov records show the Federal Communications Commission signed delivery orders with Carahsoft in May and July under contract IDs 273FCC26F0051 and 273FCC26F0081.

Lutnick's remark to Bloomberg followed his on-stage discussion with Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown at the G20 Innovation Ministerial in North Carolina, after months of on-and-off tension between Anthropic and the Trump administration. The two statements landed a day apart and describe different parts of the same government.

What the D.C. Circuit must weigh Tillipman said Anthropic's biggest obstacle in the appellate court will be its inherent deference toward national security decisions, though she described the dispute as sitting at one of the most extreme outer limits of national security justifications she has seen.

Grossi said the open questions include Anthropic's challenge under the procurement statute and the accompanying constitutional claims, and that Lin's ruling does not bind the circuit and is not the final word. An appeal from the final judgment is all but certain, she said.