Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Voice of America Shutdown
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from shutting down the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent company of Voice of America, on Friday.
Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order to eliminate the agency, which was established in 1999. VOA, however, dates back to 1942.
A lawsuit filed by “government employees, individual journalists, unions, and nonprofits advocating for independent journalism,” accuse Lake, who is Senior Advisor to the Acting CEO of the USAGM, of “violat[ing] Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights. Victor Morales, a Senior Analyst who has reported on U.S. and international affairs for more than two decades, is also named in the lawsuit.
“The dismantling of USAGM would clearly cause employees, contractors, and grantees irreparable harm,” the judge wrote. “And Plaintiffs have offered sufficient evidence that Defendants are doing just that.”
Andrew G. Celli Jr., who is representing the journalists bringing the suit, told the New York Times on Friday that the judge will issue a temporary restraining order, which may be as long as 21 days, according to Celli. As of Friday evening, the order had not yet been issued.
“This is 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,” Celli said in a statement.
Plaintiffs argue that Lake’s actions are “arbitrary and capricious” because they
occurred “mere hours after the President’s executive order and did not give a justification for shutting the agency down.”
Lake added salt to the wounds on Friday morning by tweeting that USAGM employees should “check your email for an urgent message from HR.” According to the Times, the mail was an invitation to resign, with pay and benefits offered through September.
Lake ended her tweet with a snide, “Have a great weekend.”
The USAGM website states that the agency’s mission “is to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”
Voice of America is just one of the cultural institutions targeted by Trump since he took office in January. He also took over as head of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC after firing the entire board of trustees.
On Thursday, he also signed an executive order to “remove improper ideology” from The Smithsonian Institution, because the museum complex supposedly promotes “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”
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