Karen LeCraft Henderson is a Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was appointed by President George H.W. Bush (Source: cnbc.com).
Anthropic v. Department of War
Henderson sat on the panel that heard Anthropic's petitions for review of its exclusion from the Department of War's supply chain. At the May 19, 2026 oral argument she characterized the Department's supply-chain-risk designation as a "spectacular overreach" unsupported by the record (Source: cnbc.com).
When the panel denied the petitions on September 25, 2026, Henderson dissented. She wrote that whether the Secretary lawfully invoked the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act turns on whether Anthropic falls within its definition of "supply chain risk," and that "the context decidedly favors the narrower reading" of the residual term "otherwise manipulate," as meaning to manage, control or influence "in a subtle, devious, or underhand manner." She applied the noscitur a sociis, series-qualifier, ejusdem generis and anti-surplusage canons, quoting Judge Katsas's dissent in United States v. Fischer, and relied on the Act's legislative history, including S. Rep. No. 115-408 (2018), as directed at "[h]ostile nation state and other bad actors." She argued that the majority's reading makes a contractor a national-security threat for "honest and upfront enforcement of restrictions on a covered article's use disfavored by the government," and that a replacement vendor would face the choice to "[a]gree to the Secretary's demands or risk being designated a national security threat" (Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War — D.C. Circuit Opinion, Nos. 26-1049 and 26-1162 (September 25, 2026)).