In a dramatic turn of events, federal judge Rita F. Lin ruled Thursday that the Pentagon’s decision to blacklist AI startup Anthropic was unconstitutional, after it emerged the Trump administration may have confused the company with a deadly biological weapon. The ruling marks a significant victory for Anthropic, which spent the last eight months trying to convince government officials that it was not, in fact, an envelope full of spores.

“We initially believed ‘Anthropic’ was a codeword for some kind of digital nerve gas,” admitted Pentagon spokesperson Col. Brad Zurn at a hastily convened press conference. “Imagine our relief to find out they just make chatbots.”

The lawsuit, filed in California district court, accused the Trump administration of retaliating against Anthropic for setting red lines on AI use, including a strict ‘no weaponized poetry’ policy. Court documents reveal internal memos where White House aides repeatedly referred to the company as “that dangerous computer germ.”

“At one point, they asked us to send in samples of our work for inspection by the CDC,” said Anthropic COO Linda Grover. “We sent them a PDF of our mission statement, which they quarantined for three weeks.”

Despite the ruling, former president Donald Trump remained defiant. “If their name is so tough to pronounce, it can’t be good for America!” he said in a statement. “Frankly, I like my tech companies with easy names, like Google or Bing.”

Experts say the case sets a new precedent for government overreaction, with legal scholars already preparing for next month’s hearing on why the FDA placed a ban on the band Imagine Dragons.