Judge orders Voice of America restored as Trump administration prepares appeal

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A federal judge ordered the Voice of America to come back online after ruling that the Trump administration reduced the U.S. international broadcaster beyond what Kari Lake was authorized to do. The government moved quickly to challenge the decision, filing notice to appeal the order that U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth issued two days earlier.

Lamberth’s ruling, issued March 7, directed the administration to put hundreds of VOA employees—who had been placed on paid leave over the past year—back to work. The government filed the appeal notice Thursday, seeking to overturn the order.

The dispute centers on how VOA was run under U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federal parent agency. Lamberth ruled that Lake “did not have the authority” to reduce VOA to what the judge described as a “skeleton,” saying she “repeatedly thumbed her nose” at laws mandating VOA’s operation.

Before Trump took office again last year, VOA was operating in 49 different languages and was heard by an estimated 362 million people, according to the AP account. Under the administration’s changes, VOA’s operations were curtailed to a smaller footprint that the report said includes broadcasting in Iran, Afghanistan, China, North Korea and countries with large Kurdish populations.

VOA Director Michael Abramowitz told reporters that legislators in both parties understand the need for a strong operation and have set aside funding for the work. “It is time for all parties to come together and work to rebuild and strengthen the agency,” Abramowitz said. The White House, however, suggested the matter would not end with the court ruling, with White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly saying the Trump administration had focused on eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” and that “efforts to improve efficiency at USAGM have been a tremendous success,” adding, “This will not be the final say on the matter.”

A plaintiff in the lawsuit, Patsy Widakuswara, described the difficulty of rebuilding the agency’s capabilities after a year of disruption. Widakuswara said that “restoring the physical infrastructure is going to take a lot of money and some time but it can be done,” while adding that “what is more difficult is recovering from the trauma that our newsroom has gone through.” The AP report also noted that it was unclear how many employees left VOA during the past year, including whether they found other jobs or retired.

The judge’s order was specific about who must be reinstated. While Lamberth directed more than a thousand employees on leave to go back to work, the court also said it did not have the authority to bring back hundreds of independent contractors who had been terminated. Steve Herman, identified by the AP as a former VOA official and executive director at the University of Mississippi’s Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation, said he remained skeptical about whether the Trump administration would oversee a return to what the organization used to be. “I’m a bit of a pessimist,” Herman said. “I think it’s going to be very difficult.”

The AP report said the court fight also came amid efforts by the administration to shape VOA and other overseas government-funded outlets, including by bolstering friendly media and seeking coverage that does not displease it. Congress has required VOA to be an objective and unbiased news source, but the article said the administration’s approach has raised questions about whether it wants a true news organization or a mouthpiece.

Among the developments, the AP report said the administration last week nominated Sarah Rogers, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, to run USAGM. Her nomination requires Senate approval. The report also said VOA would be getting a new deputy director: Christopher Wallace, described as an executive at the conservative network Newsmax who previously spent 15 years at Fox News Channel. VOA’s director Michael Abramowitz told the AP he did not know he was getting a new deputy until it was announced, and Widakuswara declined to comment on what Wallace’s appointment might mean, saying, “I’m not going to pass judgment before seeing his work.”

In the background, former VOA director David Ensor said he did not know what the future would hold. “We don’t know — maybe no one does at the moment — what the future holds,” Ensor said. He also cited the example of VOA’s audience in Iran, where he said surveys showed between a quarter and a third of Iranian households tuned in once a week while also describing how the government occasionally cracked down on satellite dishes.

For VOA leadership, the near-term priority is getting staff and infrastructure back in place, then rebuilding operations across multiple languages. Kate Neeper, VOA’s director of strategy and performance evaluation, said the budget bill passed in February set aside $200 million for VOA’s operation. She described it as a bipartisan message of support and said there was “a lot of enthusiasm for going back to work,” adding that “People are eager to show up on Monday.”