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WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge agreed Monday to temporarily suspend the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate hundreds of jobs at the agency that oversees Voice of America, the government-funded broadcaster founded to counter Nazi propaganda during World War II.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., ruled that the U.S. Agency for Global Media cannot implement a reduction in force eliminating 532 jobs for full-time government employees on Tuesday. Those employees represent the vast majority of its remaining staff.
Kari Lake, the agency’s acting CEO, announced in late August that the job cuts would take effect Tuesday. But the judge’s ruling preserves the status quo at the agency until he rules on a plaintiffs’ underlying motion to block the reduction in force.
Lamberth previously ruled that President Donald Trump’s Republican administration must restore VOA programming to levels commensurate with its statutory mandate to “serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.” He also blocked Lake from removing Michael Abramowitz as VOA’s director.
Judge cites ‘concerning disrespect’ toward court from administration
Lamberth accused the administration of showing “concerning disrespect” toward the court in response to his earlier orders to produce information about its plans for Voice of America. He noted that the agency initiated the job cuts only hours after a hearing last month in which government lawyers said a reduction in force, or RIF, was merely a possibility.
“The defendants’ obfuscation of this Court’s request for information regarding whether their RIF plans comported with the preliminary injunction has wasted precious judicial time and resources and readily support contempt proceedings,” Lamberth wrote.
But he said he wouldn’t initiate contempt proceedings on his own because the plaintiffs haven’t sought it yet.
“However, (the court’s) deference to the plaintiffs with respect to further proceedings should not be mistaken for lenience toward the defendants’ egregious erstwhile conduct,” he added.
Employees who sued to block the dismantling of Voice of America claimed the planned cuts would hamper the judge’s ability to enforce the injunction he issued in April. “This Court should therefore preserve the status quo while the parties litigate compliance,” their attorneys wrote.
Government lawyers accused the plaintiffs of impermissibly trying to micromanage the agency’s operations. “Enjoining the reductions in force would be a wholly overbroad and improper remedy,” they wrote.
Lamberth, a senior judge, was nominated to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1987.
Can media agency continue to fulfill its ‘statutory mission’?
The U.S. Agency for Global Media also houses Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. The networks, which together reach an estimated 427 million people, date to the Cold War and are part of a network of government-funded organizations trying to extend U.S. influence and combat authoritarianism.
Congress appropriated $875 million to the agency for fiscal year 2025 and required that $260 million of the funds must be spent by VOA.
In March, Trump signed an executive order called for the agency to reduce its “statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.” A day later, VOA stopped broadcasting for the first time in 83 years. The agency placed almost all of its full-time employees on administrative leave.
In announcing the job cuts on social media last month, Lake said the agency “will continue to fulfill its statutory mission … and will likely improve its ability to function.”
“I look forward to taking additional steps in the coming months to improve the functioning of a very broken agency and make sure America’s voice is heard abroad where it matters most,” she wrote.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Georgina Yeomans argued Monday that the cuts would cement the agency’s programming at deficient levels that don’t comply with the judge’s orders. Yeomans said it’s unclear who at the agency is making key decisions, such as which jobs to eliminate.
“We simply do not know,” she said.
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