Judge reverses Trump staff reductions at Voice of America
Judge reverses Trump staff reductions at Voice of America
Marc Ramirez, USA TODAYWed, March 18, 2026 at 3:18 PM UTC
1
Hundreds of Voice of America staffers who’ve spent the last year on leave will be headed back to work after a judge’s ruling ordering the Trump administration to revive the dismantled federal broadcasting operation.
More than 1,000 Voice of America journalists, technicians, budget analysts, electronics engineers and other workers had been placed on administrative leave last year by Kari Lake, the former news anchor who President Donald Trump appointed to hollow out the international news entity as part of efforts to streamline government operations.
But the March 17 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia means the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which runs the Voice of America, will have until next week to produce a plan to get Voice of America up and running again. The decision follows a March 7 ruling by Lamberth that Lake had been improperly installed as the agency’s CEO and thus was without authority to carry out its dismantling.
"Defendants have provided nothing approaching a principled basis for their decision," Lamberth said in his ruling.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media was among seven federal agencies cited for reduction by Trump in an executive order signed last year as part of his efforts to make government more efficient, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt describing Voice of America as "anti-American propaganda."
The judge also chastised government officials for failing to provide basic details about agency operations and plans throughout the proceedings.
Advertisement
"The defendants’ persistent omission and withholding of key information in this case has been a Hallmark production in bad faith," he wrote.
Kari Lake listens to a question from an attendee during the AmericaFest 2024 conference sponsored by conservative group Turning Point in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. December 21, 2024.
A joint statement issued by several plaintiffs — VOA journalists Patsy Widakuswara and Jessica Jerreat and agency executive Kate Neeper — praised the ruling.
"This is a monumental decision, and we are deeply grateful," they wrote. "We are eager to begin repairing the damage Kari Lake has inflicted on our agency and our colleagues, to return to our congressional mandate, and to rebuild the trust of the global audience we have been unable to serve for the past year."
Until it was stripped down at Trump’s direction, Voice of America had been the largest global broadcaster in the U.S., offering digital, television and radio news in 50 languages to more than 350 million people. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the operation, then called the U.S. Foreign Information Service, in 1941 to counter Nazi propaganda being spread throughout Europe during World War II.
"We know the road to restoring VOA's operations and reputation will be long and difficult," the former employees’ statement read. "We hope the American people will continue to support our mission to produce journalism, not propaganda."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Judge's ruling revives dismantled Voice of America
Source: “AOL Breaking”
