MANHATTAN (CN) — A federal judge on Friday afternoon temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle Voice of America, the federally funded nonprofit state media network, after its international news broadcasting was targeted as a purported cost-saving measure.
Finding that the Trump administration failed to provide adequate reasoning behind the abrupt and sweeping changes to Voice of America and “seemingly failed to consider any reliance issues in effectively closing the agency,” U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken wrote in granting a motion for temporary restraining order barring the U.S. Agency for Global Media from shuttering its flagship service.
“Defendants’ dismantling of USAGM presents further concerns under Section 706(2), as it appears to violate, at minimum, the Take Care Clause and separation of powers principles of the United States Constitution,” Oetken wrote in a 22-page order.
The temporary restraining order is in effect for up to 21 days.
The judge portended his ruling earlier in the day during oral arguments in Manhattan federal court, remarking it was “a classic case” of “arbitrary policymaking.”
Oetken, a Barrack Obama appointee, also denied the government’s request that the plaintiffs — a group of journalists and media unions that sued the Trump administration last Friday — post a $23.1 million Rule 65(c) bond based on expected payroll costs of $1.1 million per day during the three-week term of the temporary restraining order if they are later found to have been wrongfully blocked.
Advocates for Voice of America say abruptly pulling the plug on the network will have a severe geopolitical ripple effect on international democracy.
“In the world at large, the vacuum left by defendants pulling the plug on USAGM’s news networks is being filled by propagandists whose messages will monopolize global airwaves, while VOA, Radio y Television Martì, RFE/RL, RFA, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and others — credible voices to the contrary — are silenced,” the plaintiffs wrote in their complaint.
“The first thing that happens in a military coup is they take over the radio station,” plaintiffs’ attorney Andrew Celli Jr. said during oral arguments on Friday morning.
Voice of America director Michael Abramowitz has also echoed the implications that the United States’ enemies “are already rejoicing” at the elimination of alternatives to state-dominated propaganda.
“Closing down Voice of America would be an incalculable self-inflicted wound for America and deprive the U.S. of a priceless asset,” he wrote in a letter to staff on Wednesday. “By silencing VOA, the U.S. would be giving a huge gift to the ayatollahs and other dictators and rivals. In Africa and Latin America, shutting down VOA would cede entire continents to America’s adversaries and allow authoritarian regimes to seed anti-American narratives.”
Celli — founding partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel — called the ruling “a decisive victory for press freedom and the First Amendment, and a sharp rebuke to an administration that has shown utter disregard for the principles that define our democracy.”
Norm Eisen, the co-founder and executive chair of State Democracy Defenders Fund, called the ruling “a welcome, and necessary, first step toward correcting the injustices faced by the workers, reporters, and listeners of Voice of America.”
Voice of America, which was created more than 80 years ago to counter Nazi propaganda during World War II with pro-democracy programming and fact-driven journalism, is overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
Shortly into his second presidential term, Trump appointed Kari Lake, the former news broadcaster turned MAGA Republican politician, as senior adviser to the acting CEO of the agency, which preceded an executive order titled “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” mandating reductions of the functions of several agencies to the statutory minimum required by law.
That executive order included the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which broadcasts Spanish-language news into Cuba.
The next day, March 15th, all Voice of America staff were placed on indefinite administrative leave effective immediately — and all Voice of America news service ceased.
Lake, who has experienced at least half a dozen legal losses based on election conspiracy theories in Arizona since her gubernatorial loss in 2022, declared Voice of America, in its editorially-independent form, “not salvageable.”
While the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency organization purportedly targeted Voice of America as a budget-cutting measure rooting out purportedly wasteful and fraudulent spending — similar to its efforts against independent agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Institute for Peace and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — the Trump administration has also derided its reporting as “radical propaganda”.
Led in their lawsuit by Voice of America White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara, the group of journalists and media unions accuse the government of violating their statutory Firewall rights, along with their Free Speech and Press rights under the First Amendment.
The plaintiffs include the American Federation of Government Employees, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, The NewsGuild-CWA, the American Foreign Service Association, Reporters Without Borders and seven individual workers.
The plaintiffs noted that for fiscal year 2025, Congress appropriated $875 million for the agency to carry out international communication activities, with $260 million conditioned to go to Voice of America.
They also argued the agency has limited discretion to deviate from those specifically designated amounts.
“Nothing gives USAGM the authority to shut itself down,” they wrote in a court filing. “Congress even placed limits on USAGM’s (and other agencies’) ability to shut down more discrete items.”
Earlier this week, a D.C. federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s effort to cut funding for Radio Free Europe, a nonprofit news agency funded by the U.S. government that operates in 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.
One day later, Lake sent a letter withdrawing the termination of Radio Free Europe’s grant agreement, without prejudice to the agency’s authority to once again terminate the grant at a later date if the agency were to determine rescission was appropriate under the applicable law.