Judge Rita Lin blocked one designation. She could not block the other.
On March 26, Lin, a federal judge in the Northern District of California, issued a 43-page preliminary injunction that stopped the Trump administration from treating Anthropic as a national security supply chain risk under 10 U.S.C. 3252. She called the government's moves "Orwellian" and "classic First Amendment retaliation" — punishment, she wrote, for Anthropic's public disagreement with Pentagon policy. She even stayed her own order for seven days to give the Justice Department a chance to appeal.
The DOJ filed that appeal Thursday. It did not file in California.
The reason: Lin only had jurisdiction over one of the two statutes the administration used to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk. The second statute, 41 U.S.C. 4713, can only be adjudicated in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — and that is where the fight that actually matters is now playing out, according to lawyers and lobbyists tracking the case.
"The designation remains in place," Emil Michael, the Pentagon's chief technology officer and under secretary of defense for research and engineering, posted on X the day after Lin's order. "The ruling applies only to the 10 U.S.C. 3252 designation, not to 41 U.S.C. 4713." Michael also said Lin's order "contained dozens of factual errors," without specifying them.
Anthropic filed two separate lawsuits challenging the designations: one in Northern California challenging the 3252 designation and executive directives, another directly in the D.C. Circuit challenging the 4713 designation. Lin's injunction disposed of the first. The D.C. Circuit has not yet ruled on Anthropic's emergency motion for a stay under 4713.
The practical consequences of that jurisdictional split are already visible. Three contractors terminated their work with Anthropic or were instructed to do so by the government, and three deals valued at over $180 million fell apart despite being on the verge of closing. Anthropic's Pentagon contract — the one Lin's order does not touch — is worth approximately $200 million. Anthropic is also the only AI company whose model has been deployed on the U.S. military's classified networks.
Anthropic's position stems from CEO Dario Amodei's refusal to allow Claude to be used for autonomous weapons or to surveil American citizens. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the company "sanctimonious" and said it delivered a "master class in arrogance." The administration gave Anthropic until 5:01 p.m. on February 27 to reverse that position. When it did not, the designations followed.
What happens in the D.C. Circuit may depend on which judges draw the assignment. The D.C. Circuit has a heavy caseload on executive power issues right now, and the three-judge panel that hears Anthropic's motion could include judges with well-documented views on executive authority — views that cut in both directions. The legal community is watching the panel composition carefully, because the outcome turns on statutory interpretation questions where judicial philosophy matters.
Microsoft, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and multiple civil liberties groups filed amicus briefs supporting Anthropic's request for an injunction. They are watching, but they cannot vote.
The seven-day clock Lin set has already run. The California appeal will proceed through the Ninth Circuit, where the administration's arguments about executive power will face a different set of precedents and a different ideological mix of judges. But the 4713 designation — the one that actually bars contractors from working with Anthropic — does not move on Lin's timeline. It moves on the D.C. Circuit's.
Until that panel rules, the contractors who terminated Anthropic work made a rational choice given the legal uncertainty. The three deals worth $180 million-plus that collapsed did so in the gap between what one court stopped and what another court has not yet reached. Lin's order was real. It was also incomplete.
What to watch: whether Anthropic's D.C. Circuit motion gets an emergency hearing or a full panel review, and whether the administration pushes to consolidate both appeals into a single court. The answer shapes whether this gets decided by three judges in Washington or by the slower, more predictable machinery of the Ninth Circuit.
