As a special adviser to President Trump, Kari Lake is overseeing the dismantling of federally funded networks that broadcast overseas. Federal judges have issued restraining orders blocking her from further actions against Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
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Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
Trump adviser Kari Lake and the U.S. Agency for Global Media aren’t just defendants in five federal court battles.
They’re on the defensive.
In two temporary – but consequential – decisions this week, federal judges dealt blows to Lake’s drive to dismantle five government-funded international broadcasters that are overseen by USAGM.
On Friday, U.S. Judge J. Paul Oetken in Manhattan issued a temporary restraining order against Lake, the agency, and its acting chief, Victor Morales, saying they could take no additional steps to shutter the Voice of America, the oldest of the five networks. The agency has already indefinitely suspended Voice of America’s full-time workforce and terminated all its contractual employees.
The government-owned network, which broadcasts to hundreds of millions of listeners, viewers and readers each week, shut down operations two weeks ago; no fresh content has been produced since March 15.
In Washington on Wednesday, another federal judge froze Lake’s efforts to cut off funds for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, another U.S.-funded international broadcaster. Shortly after, the U.S. Agency for Global Media started to inform the network and several others that funding would be restored. But the state of play – for the moment, and down the line – remains unclear.
Lake navigates new political and legal waters
Lake is a local TV news anchor in Phoenix turned two-time unsuccessful MAGA candidate for statewide office in Arizona. Her embrace of President Trump brought her to Washington, where she is now a senior presidential adviser assigned to the agency. Lake did not reply to NPR’s request for comment for this story.
Previously, she amplified the statements the agency put out under her guidance, calling itself and the networks “irretrievably broken.” Lake has attacked Voice of America and its sister networks as rife with liberal and anti-Trump bias.
After the rulings, she suggested Friday night that she wanted to recast the network to serve the country better – and to make sure it serves the Trump administration’s priorities.
“Voice of America has an incredible mission. It needs to return to it,” she wrote on X, the social media platform controlled by Elon Musk. “We’re going to modernize it, make it more efficient, and ensure that instead of spreading anti-American propaganda, it’s spreading information aligned with our diplomatic policies.”
President Trump had ordered last month that the parent agency be reduced to the barest level permitted by law as part of his slashing cuts in government programs. Six Voice of America journalists, a director of strategy at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, and a coalition of unions and press advocacy groups sued the agency and its two top officials for shutting down the eight-decades old network.
Congressional Democrats and some Republicans have defended the value of Voice of America and some of its sister networks.
Judges find First Amendment injury, unlawful acts
Judge Oetken wrote that he repeatedly saw merit in the plaintiffs’ allegations that Lake, Morales and the agency had violated the law and constitutional provisions, including the requirement that Trump “take care” to ensure that federal laws are enforced. Oetken noted that Congress has specifically allocated money for Voice of America since its founding.
“This is a ‘classic First Amendment injur[y],” Oetken wrote in his ruling Friday. “And it is also a harm stemming from the other unlawful acts resulting in the shuttering of USAGM.”
Similarly, on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., U.S. Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled in favor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, another network funded by the government. (Unlike Voice of America, which is owned by the government, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a not-for-profit wholly dependent on federal grants.) Lamberth’s temporary restraining order prohibits Lake and the agency from moving forward with plans to cut off all Congressionally-mandated money to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
“”The leadership of USAGM cannot, with one sentence of reasoning offering virtually no explanation, force RFE/RL to shut down — even if the President has told them to do so,” Lamberth wrote.
In both instances, the U.S. Agency for Global Media had contended that it was merely complying with Trump’s order to reduce its operations only to those required by law. It also argued in the New York case involving Voice of America that it had met “statutory requirements” by retaining 33 employees from Voice of America’s sister network, Radio/TV Marti as well as “approximately 31” other employees.
Lamberth held that the Trump administration’s declaration that it would reduce the networks to the minimum required by law failed to override Congress’ right to designate money specifically for the network. White House and USAGM officials also failed to follow required policies for winding down such programs, which would slow the effort considerably.
Two hundred miles north, in the Voice of America case, Judge Oetken sounded the same themes.
“While Lake has continually used phrases such as ‘shed[ing] everything that is not statutorily required’ at USAGM, and ‘streamlining our operations to what is statutorily required by law’,” Oetken wrote in the Voice of America ruling, “insinuating that these actions fall within the statutory parameters laid out by Congress, such language is impossible to square with what Plaintiffs allege has happened.”
More than 1,500 employees were placed on administrative leave with pay; hundreds of employees on contracts were terminated.
Deep repercussions for abrupt acts
The actions have had immediate effects.
Radio Free Asia, another non-profit network funded by Congress through USAGM, furloughed three-quarters of its Washington-based staff last Friday. The chief executive of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said he would have to take “drastic” measures to keep the network alive.
Staffers reported long lines of employees returning their security passes and devices at the Voice of America building on Friday.
Many nationals of other countries working for the networks and their foreign-language services expect to have to return to their native lands. In some cases, as defendants have alleged in lawsuits against Lake and the agency, they face a hostile reception under autocratic regimes who resent critical coverage by U.S.-funded news organizations.
The networks are intended to serve as a demonstration of soft power in places around the world. By providing news that incorporates political debate and dissent inside the U.S., the networks aim to promote and model pluralistic American ideals. And they serve as a source of public accountability in countries without a robust or free press.
“Those are the values that we extol – the best of America,” says David Seide, one of the attorneys for the coalition of plaintiffs that brought suit in New York City.
According to the agency’s own figures, the networks together reach more than 420 million people in 63 languages and more than 100 countries each week. They are fully funded by federal dollars.
Trump initially announced he wanted Lake to become the director of Voice of America; back then, she said she wanted to reform the network.
The position of director is not presidentially appointed, however, and Trump fired the bipartisan oversight board that would have to approve it once a permanent agency CEO has been appointed; Trump has diverted his choice to take over USAGM, nominating him to be ambassador to South Africa instead. And the oversight board has not yet been reconstituted.
Meanwhile, Voice of America Director Michael Abramowitz, who is also indefinitely suspended, is the lead plaintiff in yet another suit against the agency. There are at least five lawsuits in all, including the two that have already yielded temporary restraining orders.
Lake says she is a victim of ‘lawfare’
Lake, Morales and the agency did not reply to NPR’s requests for comment for this story.
On social media Friday, Lake posted clips of her appearances on right-wing outlets.
“As President Trump tries to reduce the government bloat, the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., it’s been one lawsuit after the next, after the next, after the next,” she told OANN. “This is just par for the course. We’ve been victims – President Trump has, I myself have – of lawfare, It’s the same cast of characters who are coming over and trying to put landmines in the way.”
Following this week’s restraining order preventing further actions against Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the agency informed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that it would rescind the order to cancel the grants and would instead release money for this fiscal year. It has also embarked on informing other nonprofits that receive grants from the agency, including the Open Technology Fund, which has helped to underwrite open sourced tech for secure communications, including the code underlying Signal.
Officials at Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks are said to be awaiting notification as well.
The temporary reprieve – and even the promises of the restoration of funds – offers no permanent relief, however. Executives and staffers of the networks believe Lake will seek to convince lawmakers to strip funds for the upcoming budget year, though they just affirmed their budgets in the current stopgap spending measure.
And it appears unclear that Lake intends to fully retreat.
On Friday night, she advised all USAGM employees to check their e-mail boxes. Staffers told NPR they found another offer encouraging them to take a voluntary buyout – her way of suggesting full permanent layoffs may be on the horizon.
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