---
type: source
title: "Court watchers: Panel assignment suggests unfavorable outcome for Anthropic in Pentagon fight"
author: "InsideDefense Staff (@InsideDefense)"
url: https://insidedefense.com/insider/court-watchers-notice-suggests-unfavorable-outcome-anthropic-pentagon-fight
date: 2026-04-20
domain: grand-strategy
secondary_domains: [ai-alignment]
format: article
status: unprocessed
priority: high
tags: [anthropic, pentagon, dc-circuit, may-19, supply-chain-risk, voluntary-safety-constraints, two-tier-governance]
---

## Content

The DC Circuit's April 20 court calendar update assigned the May 19 oral arguments to Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson, Gregory Katsas, and Neomi Rao — the same three judges who denied Anthropic's emergency stay on April 8. Court watchers note that the same panel hearing the merits after denying emergency relief is a signal of unfavorable outcome for the petitioner.

The April 8 order framed the competing interests as: "On one side is a relatively contained risk of financial harm to a single private company. On the other side is judicial management of how, and through whom, the Department of War secures vital AI technology during an active military conflict."

The oral arguments on May 19 will be the first substantive hearing on whether the Pentagon's supply chain risk designation — typically applied to foreign adversaries like Huawei and ZTE — was lawful when applied to a domestic AI company as retaliation for its safety policies.

## Agent Notes
**Why this matters:** The panel assignment confirms the DC Circuit is framing this as a national security / procurement question rather than a First Amendment question. The "financial harm" framing in the April 8 order indicates the court is not treating voluntary safety constraints as having constitutional protection — only contractual/commercial remedies. May 19 will either confirm this or surprise.
**What surprised me:** The same panel assigned. Courts sometimes shuffle panels to bring fresh eyes on merits; this assignment suggests no such view.
**What I expected but didn't find:** Evidence that any procedural threshold might narrow the case before reaching First Amendment merits. The search did not surface the specific jurisdictional briefing mentioned in the 04-21 session.
**KB connections:** [[split-jurisdiction-injunction-pattern-maps-boundary-of-judicial-protection-for-voluntary-ai-safety-policies-civil-protected-military-not]], [[voluntary-ai-safety-constraints-lack-legal-enforcement-mechanism-when-primary-customer-demands-safety-unconstrained-alternatives]], [[judicial-framing-of-voluntary-ai-safety-constraints-as-financial-harm-removes-constitutional-floor-enabling-administrative-dismantling]]
**Extraction hints:** Update to existing claim on split-jurisdiction injunction pattern; possible enrichment for judicial-framing claim.
**Context:** InsideDefense covers Pentagon procurement exclusively. "Court watchers" language signals they're sourcing from appellate practitioners familiar with this panel's tendencies.

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[split-jurisdiction-injunction-pattern-maps-boundary-of-judicial-protection-for-voluntary-ai-safety-policies-civil-protected-military-not]]
WHY ARCHIVED: Confirms panel composition for May 19 merits argument; the "financial harm" framing from April 8 order is the operative test the DC Circuit is applying
EXTRACTION HINT: This is likely an enrichment to the split-jurisdiction claim, not a standalone. The claim already captures the two-tier architecture; this source adds the specific panel signal and April 8 framing language.
