A US federal judge temporarily blocked a move by President Donald Trump’s administration to lay off more than 500 Voice of America employees, according to a court order on Monday.
Kari Lake, a senior advisor to the US Agency for Global Media, has spearheaded the Trump’s effort to gut government-funded media, despite legal disputes and criticism that US adversaries will benefit.
Hundreds of VOA employees received termination notices in June, following a Trump order that froze the outlet for the first time since it was founded in 1942.
But US District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled against Lake and blocked the terminations, which were meant to take effect on September 30.
“The Reduction in Force announced by Defendant Lake on or about August 29, 2025, is SUSPENDED and may NOT be implemented… until this Court has ruled on the plaintiffs’ Motion,” Lamberth wrote, referring to further legal proceedings set for next month.
The court issued a preliminary injunction in April after concluding Lake’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious and not in accordance with law,” the judge said in the 19-page legal order.
Monday’s ruling was meant to facilitate the injunction and restore VOA’s programming so that the USAGM fulfills its statutory mandate, he added.
Lake has said that the June termination notices were a “long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.”
The judge found that Lake and other defendants resisted the court’s effort to obtain information on whether they had made a plan to comply with the April injunction.
“The Court no longer harbors any doubt that defendants lack a plan to comply with the preliminary injunction, and instead have been running out the clock on the fiscal year while remaining in violation of… statutory obligations,” the judge wrote.
Created during the Second World War as an instrument of American soft power, USAGM is an independent agency tasked with promoting democracy and countering propaganda overseas through entities that include VOA, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting.
Trump frequently attacks media outlets and has scoffed at the so-called editorial firewall at VOA which prevents the government from intervening in its coverage, and which the president considers too critical of his administration.
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