The federal government's recent move to temporarily impose export controls on Anthropic PBC's most powerful AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, did not undergo an interagency review, according to Bureau of Industry and Security Undersecretary Jeffrey Kessler, who said no such review was required.
Speaking during a budget hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kessler answered questions about the impetus for US Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's June letter to Anthropic. The letter, sent shortly after the company released its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, informed Anthropic that a license would be required for any foreign person to access the new models. Due to the difficulty of differentiating between US and foreign users at scale, Anthropic implemented a global "kill switch" that disabled both models for all customers. Following roughly 2.5 weeks of negotiations, the agency partially reversed the restriction.
When questioned by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) Kessler declined to confirm or deny a report from The Wall Street Journal that Amazon.com Inc. CEO Andy Jassy had raised concerns to the White House about the models' guardrails before the letter was issued.
"It wasn't based on a phone call," Kessler said. "It was based on our evaluation of the risks of the dissemination of the model."
Pressed on whether BIS conducted its own analysis, Kessler said the assessment function sits elsewhere in the Commerce Department, citing the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Center for AI Standards and Innovation.
"The US government makes its own independent assessments of the risks of frontier models," Kessler said.
The BIS Undersecretary noted that the process for issuing so-called "is-informed" letters — or formal notifications that privately inform a US company of supplemental export license requirements — differs from that for issuing a license. Kessler said it does not require formal sign-off from the State, Defense and Energy departments, which review export license applications under the Export Administration Regulations.
"When we issue 'is-informed' letters, we don't necessarily go through the same kind of interagency process that we would do when we have a license," Kessler said.
Jayapal said the episode raised concerns about ad hoc enforcement.
In a June 12 blog post, Anthropic said that while it believes the government should "have the ability to block unsafe deployments" as part of a statutory process that is "transparent, fair, clear and grounded in technical facts," the company argues that the BIS action to restrict access "does not adhere to those principles."
Kessler said he expects the government to develop more rules on frontier model releases and pointed to the president's June executive order on AI as the current framework. The order directs federal agencies to establish a voluntary framework for AI developers to share frontier models with the government before public release. Developers could give the government access to such models up to 30 days before release and collaborate with federal officials to identify "trusted partners" for early access.
Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) praised Anthropic's cooperation but questioned whether the government has the authority to compel the next frontier lab to come forward voluntarily. Kessler responded that companies now know BIS has "tools at our disposal to limit the dissemination of the models" if they do not follow the pathway in the June executive order.
Ranking member Gregory Meeks (D-NY) echoed similar concerns in his opening statement, saying major policy actions are increasingly implemented through private letters to individual companies rather than transparent rules that apply equally to everyone.
Democrats were not alone in questioning whether the agency's resources would be better spent on proactive rulemaking rather than reactive enforcement. Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) asked whether Congress should scrutinize the agency's policies rather than fund more enforcement.
Kessler said in response that he did not think more regulation "equates to more national security."
Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) pressed Kessler on why BIS had not acted on an October 2025 letter from four committee chairmen identifying high-risk sectors, including semiconductor manufacturing equipment and subsea cables, for action under the agency's information and communications technology authorities. The agency has not added an entity to its export blacklist since October 2025, the longest gap since 2008, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, even as it seeks a 147% increase in enforcement funding, to $301 million from $122 million.
Spokespersons for BIS, Anthropic and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
