Republican appointee rules attempts to shutter federal agency are illegal and mandates workers return by 23 March
Gloria Oliadipo at The Guardian:
A Republican-appointed federal judge has ordered that more than 1,000 Voice of America (VOA) employees be reinstated after a Trump administration order effectively dismantled the radio network, triggering mass layoffs.
In two separate rulings made Tuesday, the US district judge Royce Lamberth said that attempts to shut down operations of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent federal agency that oversees VOA, are illegal and mandated that employees return to work by 23 March.
Lamberth further instructed the agency to create a plan for how it will return VOA back to the air.
Lamberth’s latest order comes only 10 days after he ruled that former USAGM director Kari Lake illegally led the agency, writing that Trump’s attempts to place Lake and others into leadership “are unlawfully withholding mandatory agency action”. Lake oversaw USAGM from 31 July to 19 November 2025, laying off more than 1,000 employees.
In a statement posted to Twitter, Lake said she planned to appeal Lamberth’s ruling on the lawful status of her leadership.
Last year, Lake was also blocked by a federal judge from removing Michael Abramowitz as VOA director. Abramowitz and another group of employees later filed separate lawsuits against the government.
Abramowitz hailed Lamberth’s ruling in a statement to the Washington Post. “Voice of America has never been more needed,” he said. “I am grateful for the resilience and dedication of VOA’s amazing workforce.”
Plaintiffs in the other suit, former employees Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper, called Lamberth’s ruling a “monumental decision” in a statement to the Post.
In Abramowitz v. Lake, Judge Royce Lamberth orders the reinstation of more than 1,000 Voice of America (VOA) employees that were wrongly terminated by the Trump Regime’s illegal efforts to dismantle the VOA to be reinstated to their jobs.
See Also:
CNN: Judge orders Voice of America staff reinstated, reversing Trump’s shutdown
Open Technology Fund, which helped activists evade state surveillance and sidestep web censorship, sees $20m grant pulled
A Trump crony currently running the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is trying not to make life difficult for Alexander Lukashenko and other authoritarian criminals who Donald Trump identifies with. Those authoritarians have a certain bond with each other.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media sent letters to Soros and his Open Society Foundations apologizing for the program, which was aired by Radio and Television Martí.
The headline under-states how bad it was:
The program, which has since been taken offline, called Soros a “nonpracticing Jew of flexible morals,” claimed that he was involved in “clandestine operations that led to the dismantling of the Soviet Union” and described him as “the architect of the financial collapse of 2008.”
It also made repeated references to Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that has launched an “Expose Soros” fundraising campaign and had claimed, without evidence, that the “Soros-occupied State Department” was funding a migrant caravan on its way to the United States.
This is fucking terrible. Especially bc of the recent rise in antisemitic attacks, the recent news of facebook funding weird oppo research on soros, etc. Also:
USAGM [formerly known as the “Broadcasting Board of Governors” - RCI] has not answered questions about who ordered the anti-Soros broadcast.
We deserve a name and that person should be fired immediately.
Also, I really don’t like this recent change made to the organization itself:
Until 2016, it was headed by a bi-partisan board with nine members.. By law, no more than four members could be from the same political party... Upon the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, the agency was placed under the direction of a single CEO, and the board, officially renamed the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, was reduced to five members appointed by the President to serve in a merely advisory role... (x)
I don’t know much about it, but this seems really shady.
P.s. Found an interesting article about it (x) and it seems like the first sentence basically sums up the overall issue: “[It’s the] government agency that broadcasts U.S. news around the world (or aids in the spread of American propaganda, depending on who you ask)...”
Lake, whom Trump appointed without Senate confirmation to run Voice of America parent agency, cut over 1,000 jobs
Michael Sainato at The Guardian:
A federal judge ruled Saturday that Kari Lake unlawfully led the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) for several months last year and voided mass layoffs and other actions taken during that period to dismantle the agency.
The US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is an independent federal agency that oversees the Voice of America (VOA), the US’s largest and oldest international broadcaster, and provides grants to Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other news agencies.
The Trump administration moved to defund the agency in early 2025 and appointed Lake to oversee the agency, but did not receive Senate confirmation for her role. Despite efforts to defund the agency, Congress appropriated half a billion dollars more than Lake requested in funding for the agency in 2026.
In her role, Lake cut contracts and over 1,000 staff positions at the agency when she was appointed to the role on 31 July before she relinquished the position on 19 November.
“Only the Appointments Clause or the Vacancies Act’s exclusive structure may authorize service as a principal officer, and Lake satisfies the requirements of neither the statute nor the Constitution,” US district court judge Royce C Lamberth wrote in the ruling.
Lamberth leaned on the ruling by the third circuit court of appeals that ruled the appointment of Alina Habba, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, to lead the US attorney’s office in New Jersey was invalid.
“Adopting Lake’s position would require the Court to find that the President can fill a first assistantship at any time during a vacancy in a Senate-confirmed office and then … elevate the first assistant to serve as the acting officer,” Lamberth said in the ruling.
Lake said in a statement on social media: “We will appeal this outrageous ruling from an activist DC District Court Judge.” Lake also reposted a claim that the judge slept through arguments in the trial, responding “not surprised. Morbid obesity can cause massive issues with blood sugar.”
[...]
Plaintiffs in the case, Voice of America’s White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper, said they felt “vindicated and deeply grateful” for the judge’s ruling in the case.
“The judge’s ruling that Kari Lake’s actions shall have no force or effect is a powerful step toward undoing the damage she has inflicted on this American institution that we love,” they said in a statement. “Even as we work through what this ruling means for colleagues harmed by her actions, it brings renewed hope and momentum to the next phase of our fight: restoring VOA’s global operations and ensuring we continue to produce journalism, not propaganda.”
Judge Royce Lambert ruled in Widakuswara v. Lake that Kari Lake unlawfully led the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) in violation of the Appointments Clause and the Vacancies Act.
Lake’s mass layoffs of USAGM employees and dismantling of its various operations will be ruled void as a result of the ruling.
See Also:
Reuters, via HuffPost: Judge Voids 2025 Actions Taken By Kari Lake As Voice Of America CEO, Including Job Cuts
Politico: Judge says Kari Lake’s tenure atop US media agency was improper, voids actions as ‘acting CEO’
MS NOW: Judge voids Kari Lake’s mass layoffs at Voice of America
Federal officials placed 1,300 employees at Voice of America on indefinite paid leave, while severing contracts with Radio Free Asia and oth
David Folkenflik at NPR:
Journalists showed up at the Voice of America today to broadcast their programs only to be told they had been locked out: Federal officials had embarked on indefinite mass suspensions.
All full-time staffers at the Voice of America and the Office for Cuba Broadcasting, which runs Radio and Television Martí, were affected — more than 1,000 employees. The move followed a late Friday night edict from President Trump that its parent agency, called the U.S. Agency for Global Media, must eliminate all activities that are not required by law.
In addition, under the leadership of Trump appointees, the agency has severed all contracts for the privately incorporated international broadcasters it funds, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
The termination notices for grants for the funded networks, two of which were reviewed by NPR, carried the signature of Trump's senior adviser Kari Lake, whom he placed at USAGM, not the agency's acting chief executive. Lake does not appear in her current job to have the statutory authority to carry out that termination.
"I am deeply saddened that for the 1st time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced," the network's director, Michael Abramowitz, said in a statement posted on his personal Facebook account. "VOA needs thoughtful reform and we have made progress in that regard. But today's action will leave Voice of America unable to carry out its vital mission." He wrote that he was among those 1,300 journalists, producers and support staff put on leave.
Grant Turner, the former chief financial officer at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, called it "Bloody Saturday" for the agency and its networks.
'Arsonists just set fire to it'
"From what I hear, this is shaping up to be a really sad day. USAGM networks share important news, information and American values around the world," Turner said. "It took decades to build this goodwill and an audience of hundreds of millions every week. Seeing arsonists just set fire to it all is awful."
"The cancellation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's grant agreement would be a massive gift to America's enemies," Steve Capus, the president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said in a statement today shared with NPR. "The Iranian Ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years. Handing our adversaries a win would make them stronger and America weaker. We've benefitted from strong bipartisan support throughout RFE/RL's storied history. Without us, the nearly 50 million people in closed societies who depend on us for accurate news and information each week won't have access to the truth about America and the world."
Voice of America Director Michael Abramowitz declined to comment but acknowledged he had been among those put on indefinite paid leave.
This story is based on interviews with 16 current and former employees of the U.S. Agency for Global Media and the networks it funds. Almost all spoke on condition they not be named due to fear of professional retribution. NPR has reviewed internal notifications about the suspensions and the killed contracts. Similar notices reviewed by NPR have been received by hundreds of contractors at the Voice of America as well today.
USAGM and the White House did not reply to requests for comment. A deputy White House spokesperson tweeted "Goodbye" in 20 languages over a link to a story from 2023 over a controversy at the Voice of America about how to characterize Hamas.
Taken together, the federally-funded broadcasters and their sister networks covering the Middle East and Cuba reach 420 million people in 63 languages and more than 100 countries each week, according to the agency. They are fully funded by federal dollars.
The networks' mission is to deliver news coverage and cultural programming to places where a free press is threatened or doesn't exist. They are also designed as a form of soft diplomacy, modeling independent journalism that incorporates dissent from government policy.
Trump's friends in Moscow and Budapest aggrieved by network coverage
The Voice of America sparked Trump's ire in his first term in office over reporting on Covid-19. His appointee as chief executive for U.S. Agency for Global Media embarked on a series of suspensions, visa revocations and investigations that were found, in some instances, to violate the law and federal policy.
This time, Trump's budget-slashing adviser, Elon Musk, and other administration officials have called for Voice of America and some of the sister networks to be shut down. The scope and legality of these acts are not yet in full focus, but they appear to be designed to gut them and place whatever coverage survives under tighter control of politically appointed officials.
Trump placed Lake, a two-time unsuccessful MAGA candidate, as his senior adviser over USAGM. She did not reply to a detailed request for comment for this story. USAGM's media relations team has not replied to NPR's repeated and detailed requests for comment about developments at the networks in recent days, including today. Trump's pick to lead the agency permanently, the conservative media critic L. Brent Bozell III, has not yet been scheduled for confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate.
Free press-hating Orange Führer’s regime orders mass cullings of journalists working at US Agency For Global Media-owned outlets such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.
See Also:
The Guardian: Trump sharpens attacks on US media as Voice of America employees put on administrative leave
Voice of America has been broadcasting news into oppressive regimes since World War II.
Lydia O'Connor at HuffPost:
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order shuttering the agency that oversees Voice of America ― a government-funded, anti-propaganda, international media outlet that’s been in operation since World War II.
The order Trump signed Friday calls for the closure of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which manages VOA and other diplomatic news efforts. More than 1,300 of VOA’s journalists and other staffers were placed on administrative leave Saturday, according to a Facebook post from VOA Director Michael Abramowitz obtained by The Washington Post.
Kari Lake, the Agency for Global Media’s special adviser who once called for the imprisonment of journalists, cheered its demise on social media, saying: “There’s a reason it’s referred to as ‘pound-for-pound the most corrupt agency in Washington DC.’ Because it is!”
A press release from the agency was even harsher, calling it “a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer — a national security risk for this nation — and irretrievably broken.”
The Associated Press wire service shared Friday that the agency terminated its contracts with them, and Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
Since 1942, VOA has shared news globally from the American perspective and sought to fight propaganda through the broadcasting of uncensored information to people around the world living under oppressive regimes. On its website, VOA touts itself as “the largest U.S. international broadcaster, providing news and information in nearly 50 languages to an estimated weekly audience of more than 354 million people,” and emphasizes that its reporting will always be “accurate, objective, and comprehensive.”
Satan-possessed anti-American free press-destroying tyrant Donald Trump signs national security-jeopardizing executive order that closes down Voice of America, a respected outlet that provided valuable news to those in authoritarian regimes lacking vital press freedoms.
During the first Trump administration, Trump put filmmaker Michael Pack, an associate of Steve Bannon's, in charge of the US Agency for Global Media.
Pack fired the heads of Voice of America and the other networks under USAGM's purview, installed Trump loyalists on governing boards, paid a Republican-aligned law firm $1.6 million in a no-bid contract to compile dossiers on career executives, rescinded the rules protecting journalists from political interference, and blocked visa renewals for foreign journalists, suggesting they might be spies.
This time around, it's worse.
A year ago, Trump signed an executive order targeting USAGM for destruction, along with several other “woke” agencies like the Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Minority Business Development Agency, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Each of these was created by Congress with a statutory mandate to do things and funded in the budget. Nonetheless, Trump demanded they “be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
So far, he’s been unable to do it, thanks to the intervention of an 83-year-old Reagan appointee. And annoyingly, Congress refused to zero out funding for the media outlets, which have been a major source of American soft power since World War II. Now the president seems to be trimming his sails, hoping instead to turn USAGM into a North Korea-style state mouthpiece to broadcast MAGA propaganda worldwide.
Silencing America’s Voice
For more than 80 years, Voice of America and its sister networks, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Open Technology Fund, and Office of Cuba Broadcasting, have beamed high-quality media across the globe.
In 2024, USAGM’s partners reached an average of 427 million people every week. Born as a counter-propaganda campaign against the Nazis, VOA outlasted the Soviet Union and transitioned to the digital age, fulfilling its statutory mandate to report the news accurately and independently, free from political interference.
This put it crosswise with Trump, who routinely refers to the press as “the enemy of the people,” a term borrowed from Stalin.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to put Kari Lake, Arizona’s sorest loser, in charge of VOA “to ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media.” But the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, which must approve the VOA director, lacked a quorum after Trump fired most of its members. So in March of last year, Lake was installed as “Senior Adviser to the Acting CEO” of USAGM and later as Acting CEO, in flagrant disregard of the constitutional requirement that the CEO be confirmed by the Senate.
Within 24 hours of the executive order, Lake had placed 1,042 of USAGM’s 1,147 full-time employees on leave, terminated contracts with 598 personal service contractors, and halted broadcasts to whole regions of the globe.
In a cursory “Statutory Minimum Memorandum” devoid of any policy or legal analysis, Lake informed Congress that USAGM, an agency with an $882 million budget in 2024, could fulfill its statutory duties with a staff of just 68. Lake, who called USAGM “a rotten piece of fish” and a vector for foreign propaganda, proposed to replace much of its original reporting with broadcasts from such Trump-friendly outlets as One America News.
[...]
Burning down the firewall
The International Broadcasting Act requires the USAGM CEO to “respect the professional independence and integrity” of the agency’s journalists and prohibits political interference with editorial content. But Lake has been quite open about wanting to tear down this firewall.
In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Lake said, “We need to make sure the firewall is gone. We should be able to have control over what kind of content goes out. It should be in alignment with our foreign policy.” And last July, she warned that, “With the editorial firewall at Voice of America, they could go completely rogue, and the President couldn’t pick up the phone and stop them. There are no guardrails.”
[...]
On March 12, Trump nominated Sarah Rogers, currently Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, to serve as permanent CEO of USAGM
.
The previous CEO, Amanda Bennett, was a career journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize and went on to serve on the organization’s board, as well as the boards of the Committee to Protect Journalists, the German Marshall Fund, and the Neiman Fellowship program at Harvard University. Rogers, by contrast, is an extremely online right-wing lawyer who previously represented the NRA and Philip Morris, and is prone to spouting dogwhistles like “AI with a Western soul.”
But Rogers is certainly confirmable, and was in fact already blessed once by the Senate for her State Department role. Rogers says she intends to keep her State Department job while running USAGM — a strong indication that she’ll be CEO in name only. Indeed, Lake seemed to confirm as much, tweeting that she’s staying right where she is, and nothing will change.
The USAGM and VOA under MAGA lunatic Kari Lake has destroyed its once-sterling prestige in news presentation and accuracy.
