Voice of America Ordered to Be Restored After Judge Blocks Trump’s Cuts

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump Administration’s push to cut Voice of America and other government-funded news services.

Judge Royce Lamberth said the Trump Administration had “no method or approach” to shut down the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the VOA’s parent agency; he ordered the USAGM to restore employment to hundreds of staffers who had been placed on leave and to continue operating as before.

“It is hard to fathom a more straightforward display of arbitrary and capricious actions than the Defendants’ actions here,” the judge said on Tuesday.

Judge Lamberth granted a preliminary injunction to the plaintiff, VOA journalist Patsy Widakuswara and her colleagues, against Kari Lake, who is the acting CEO of the USAGM, per CBS News. The judge ordered the government to let the VOA employees return to work so they can “provide news which is consistently reliable and authoritative, accurate, objective and comprehensive.”

Tuesday’s decision comes after President Trump signed an executive order last month slashing several federal agencies, including the USAGM, which oversees Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

The executive order called for freezing government funds to USAGM and other organizations and led to a slowdown in USAGM production. Judge Lamberth said the organization was now incapable of fulfilling its mandated functions because it had been slashed down to a 33-person office in Cuba.

The Trump Administration, the judge added on Tuesday, “took immediate and drastic action to slash USAGM, without considering its statutorily or constitutionally required functions as required by the plain language of the EO, and without regard to the harm inflicted on employees, contractors, journalists, and media consumers around the world,” according to The Hill.

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