Judge Calls xShutdown Of Voice Of America By Kari Lake 'Arbitrary and Capricious,' Orders Broadcasts Restored

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore operations at Voice of America, ruling that the decision to effectively shut down the government-funded broadcaster and sideline most of its staff was "arbitrary and capricious."

U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth directed the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees Voice of America, to submit a plan within a week to resume broadcasting and return employees to work.

The ruling, reported by CBS News, reverses actions that had placed more than 1,000 of VOA's roughly 1,150 employees on administrative leave and reduced programming to minimal levels. "Defendants have provided nothing approaching a principled basis for their decision," Lamberth wrote , concluding that officials failed to consider federal laws requiring the broadcaster to serve specific regions and languages.

The decision follows an earlier ruling issued March 8 in which Lamberth determined that Kari Lake, President Trump's appointee to lead USAGM, lacked legal authority to dismantle large portions of the network because she had not received Senate confirmation.

In that decision, the judge said Lake's role did not meet the requirements of either the Constitution's Appointments Clause or federal vacancy statutes governing senior government positions.

Lake criticized the judge's latest ruling and said the administration would appeal. In a statement to CBS News, she said the administration had been acting on a mandate to reduce government bureaucracy:

"The American people gave President Trump a mandate to cut bloated bureaucracy, eliminate waste, and restore accountability to government. An activist judge is trying to stand in the way of those efforts at USAGM. Judge Lamberth has a pattern of activist rulings — and this case is no different. We strongly disagree with this decision and will appeal"

The dispute stems from a series of sweeping cuts announced last year after a presidential executive order directing major reductions at USAGM. Hundreds of VOA employees were placed on leave before receiving termination notices, part of an estimated 1,400 job cuts across the agency—about 85 percent of its workforce.

Voice of America, founded during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda, has broadcast news internationally in dozens of languages and reached hundreds of millions of people weekly before the reductions.

Patsy Widakuswara, VOA's White House bureau chief and one of the journalists who filed the lawsuit challenging the cuts, said the ruling was an important step toward restoring the organization's mission.