In a significant legal development, a federal judge has intervened to halt what appeared to be a First Amendment retaliation effort by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth against AI company Anthropic. This decision came after a hearing where the judge voiced bewilderment and concern over the Trump administration’s approach towards the tech firm.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin issued a comprehensive preliminary injunction on Thursday, just two days following her critique of Hegseth’s apparent punitive measures against Anthropic. The company had raised objections to using its AI model, Claude, in ways it deemed unsafe, specifically for autonomous lethal warfare and mass surveillance, which seemed to trigger the administration’s ire.

Judge Lin clarified that the crux of the lawsuit, filed in California, was not about whether the U.S. military could end its relationship with an AI contractor. Instead, it focused on the “Orwellian” tactics employed by then-President Donald Trump and Hegseth to achieve this severance.

During a hearing, the judge, appointed by President Joe Biden, pressed a Department of Justice attorney for clarification on Hegseth’s February 27 directive. This post on the platform X announced an immediate ban on military contractors engaging with Anthropic, reinforcing Trump’s executive order that permanently barred the company from any government contracts.

Judge Lin highlighted that the subsequent security risk designation of Anthropic by Hegseth did not match the severity of his directive, which lambasted the company for its perceived “arrogance” and “betrayal.” The directive criticized Anthropic’s refusal to provide the government with “unrestricted access” to its AI models for any lawful defense purposes.

The controversy intensified when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly defended the company’s limitations on AI use, emphasizing their existential importance. This statement was made a day before Hegseth’s incendiary post, which added fuel to the ongoing dispute.

“[T]hese threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” Amodei said. “It is the Department’s prerogative to select contractors most aligned with their vision. But given the substantial value that Anthropic’s technology provides to our armed forces, we hope they reconsider.”

When Trump responded on Truth Social by calling Anthropic a “WOKE COMPANY” and said he was “directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology,” Hegseth played follow the leader.

But during the hearing, the judge got the government to concede that the so-called “Hegseth Directive” not only had “no legal effect,” but also “didn’t reflect the immediate intent” of the Department of War.

The DOJ’s Eric Hamilton, in an attempt to inject “clarity,” stated the government had no intent to terminate contractors who use Anthropic separate and apart from Department of War work.

At the same time, Hamilton could only say “I don’t know” when pressed as to why Hegseth posted he made a “final” decision that was not actually “final.”

“So, why did Secretary Hegseth say this if it has no legal effect and he didn’t intend to cause it to happen?” Lin asked.

Hamilton came up empty, and the judge was taken aback.

“So I have to say, I find that pretty surprising,” she remarked.

It was then that Lin expressed the “concern” that her injunction aimed to remedy.

“And specifically, my concern is whether Anthropic is being punished for criticizing the government’s contracting position in the press,” Lin said.

Consequently, Lin found that at this stage the case “decisively” weighed in Anthropic’s favor, blocking the Trump administration from “punishing” the company “for bringing public scrutiny to the government’s contracting position” in an apparent act of “classic illegal First Amendment retaliation.”

She pointed directly to the words Trump and Hegseth posted online to draw the “inference” of unconstitutional retaliation, also noting “neither the President nor Secretary Hegseth cited any statutory authority for the[ir] Directives.”

“In their announcements, the President and Secretary Hegseth called Anthropic ‘out of control’ and ‘arrogant,’ describing its ‘sanctimonious rhetoric’ as an attempt to ‘strong-arm’ the government,” the judge said. “The Department of War’s records show that it designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk because of its ‘hostile manner through the press.’”

Lin went further by stating the “supply chain risk” designation itself had “no legitimate basis to infer” Anthropic’s exceptions for Claude’s use might make it a “saboteur” of the military.

Framing a company’s dissent as a “subversive” element warranting a punishment that could “cripple” if not destroy it, the judge said, is “Orwellian” — especially when a consideration of “less intrusive measures” is “required” under the law.

“Nothing in the governing statute supports the Orwellian notion that an American company may be branded a potential adversary and saboteur of the U.S. for expressing disagreement with the government,” Lin concluded.

Chief Pentagon spokesman and Hegseth senior advisor Sean Parnell reacted by reposting critiques of the ruling that stated the supply-risk designation is “at this moment” still “in full force and effect,” given that Lin paused her own ruling for a week to allow the government time to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In those criticisms, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael asserted the judge made “dozens of factual errors in the 42 page judgment” she “rushed out in 48 hours DURING A TIME OF CONFLICT that seeks to upend the @POTUS role as Commander in Chief and disrupt @SecWar full ability to conduct military operations with the partners it chooses.”

“A disgrace,” he said.