Gregory Katsas is a Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed by President Trump (Source: cnbc.com).
Anthropic v. Department of War
Katsas wrote the opinion for the court in Anthropic PBC v. United States Department of War, Nos. 26-1049 and 26-1162 (D.C. Cir. Sept. 25, 2026), joined by Judge Neomi Rao, denying Anthropic's petitions for review of its exclusion from the Department of War's supply chain under the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act. The opinion holds that "manipulate" in the statute's definition of supply chain risk carries its ordinary meaning and requires no bad motive, so that "the statutory definition of a 'supply chain risk' turns on what Anthropic does, not why Anthropic does it"; that any error in bypassing advance notice was harmless; and that the First Amendment retaliation claim failed for want of causation because the Department acted on Anthropic's refusal of an "all lawful uses" contract term. It closes that "in our Republic, it is the President and the Secretary of War who must determine how best to balance the competing risks" of military AI (Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War — D.C. Circuit Opinion, Nos. 26-1049 and 26-1162 (September 25, 2026)).
The opinion engages with Katsas's own earlier writing. In United States v. Fischer, 64 F.4th 329 (D.C. Cir. 2023), he dissented in favor of a narrow contextual reading of the residual clause of a criminal obstruction statute, a reading the Supreme Court later adopted in Fischer v. United States, 603 U.S. 480 (2024). Judge Henderson's dissent in the Anthropic case quotes that dissent repeatedly; the majority distinguished Fischer as a criminal case in which the canons' predicates were met and a broad reading would have produced "massive surplusage" and reached protected advocacy (Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War — D.C. Circuit Opinion, Nos. 26-1049 and 26-1162 (September 25, 2026)).
Relationships
- related: Anthropic v. United States (Pentagon ban challenge), Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War — D.C. Circuit Opinion, Nos. 26-1049 and 26-1162 (September 25, 2026)
- related: Neomi Rao, Karen LeCraft Henderson — the other members of the panel
- related: Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018 (FASCSA)