A federal appeals court on Saturday blocked a ruling, that had ordered the Trump administration to return more than 1,000 Voice of America (VOA) employees back to work.
US District Judge Royce Lamberth on April 22 ordered the administration to “take all necessary steps” to restore employees and contractors to their positions at the US news service and resume radio, television and online news broadcasts and some grants.
The appeals court in a 2-1 decision suggested Lamberth lacked jurisdiction to order the employees to return to work and to require the restoration of $15 million in grants for Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
The US Agency for Global Media placed over 1,000 employees on leave and told 600 contractors they would be terminated after the agency abruptly shut down the broadcasts in March under a directive from Trump.
The appeals court noted the government did not challenge the aspect of Lamberth’s ruling requiring it to restore VOA’s “statutorily required programming levels.” Numerous reports on Friday said VOA was preparing to resume broadcasts next week. USAGM did not immediately comment on Saturday.
US Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard dissented from the ruling, saying it “all but guarantees that the networks will no longer exist in any meaningful form by the time this case is fully adjudicated.”
She added that it would result in “silencing Voice of America for the foreseeable future and eliminating Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks’ ability to see this case through to the end.”
Under Trump’s directive, VOA is not reporting the news for the first time in its 80-year existence. Its website has not been updated since March 15 and radio stations abroad relying on its programming have gone dark or only air music.
Congress made the broadcasts mandatory and did not allow the executive branch to unilaterally terminate or defund them, Lamberth ruled.
Trump advisor Kari Lake announced the shutdown on March 15, placing nearly all USAGM employees on leave, saying the agency was “irretrievably broken” and biased against Trump. She said on social media Saturday the decision was a “huge victory for
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Published on: 16 Mar 2025
The Trump administration has abruptly suspended journalists at US-funded broadcasters, including Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, ordering them to leave their offices and surrender equipment in a move critics say weakens America’s global media influence.
Hundreds of reporters and other staff at VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other outlets received a weekend email saying they will be barred from their offices and should surrender press passes, office-issued telephones and other equipment.
Trump, who has already eviscerated the US aid agency and Education Department, on Friday issued an executive order listing the US Agency for Global Media as among “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary.”
Kari Lake, a firebrand Trump supporter and former Arizona news anchor who was put in charge of the media agency after she lost a US Senate bid, wrote – in an email to media outlets she supervises – that federal grant money “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”
A White House press official, Harrison Fields, took a much less legalistic tone in a post on X, simply writing “goodbye” in 20 languages, a sarcastic jab at VOA’s multilingual coverage.
The head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which started broadcasting into the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, called the cancellation of funding “a massive gift to America’s enemies.”
