A federal judge on Saturday voided layoffs at Voice of America (VOA) while also ruling that the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s (USAGM) acting CEO, Kari Lake, unlawfully ran the independent federal agency.
U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C., Judge Royce Lamberth wrote that Lake oversaw the media agency in violation of the Constitution’s appointments clause and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
Lamberth’s ruling comes after VOA’s White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara filed the lawsuit last year.
President Trump nominated Lake to be senior adviser to acting CEO Victor Morales in February 2025. Morales designated Lake “to perform the functions and responsibilities specified” to 19 out of the 22 duties that the CEO assigns,” Lamberth wrote. By July, she was made acting CEO and “exercised control over the agency during the period relevant to the motions.”
Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, ruled that Lake’s actions after becoming acting CEO, including eliminating USAGM staff in August, are void. Morales’s actions for Lake to perform were also invalidated.
“The Court finds that these expansive delegations were an unlawful effort to transform Lake into the CEO of U.S. Agency for Global Media in all but name,” Lamberth wrote.
He noted that if Lake’s designation was “proper,” it “would require the Court to find that the President can fill a first assistantship at any time during a vacancy in a Senate-confirmed office … .”
Widakuswara and fellow plaintiffs Kate Neeper and Jessica Jerreat said they feel “vindicated and [are]deeply grateful.”
“The judge’s ruling that Kari Lake’s actions shall have no force or effect is a powerful step toward undoing the damage she has inflicted on this American institution that we love,” they said in a statement to Politico. “Even as we work through what this ruling means for colleagues harmed by her actions, it brings renewed hope and momentum to the next phase of our fight: restoring VOA’s global operations and ensuring we continue to produce journalism, not propaganda.”
Lake said she disagreed “strongly” with Lamberth’s ruling and will appeal it.
“The American people gave President Trump a mandate to cut bloated bureaucracy, eliminate waste, and restore accountability to government,” Lake said in a statement obtained by The Washington Post. “An activist judge is trying to stand in the way of those efforts at USAGM.”
Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 to gut the agency. Lake last summer defended the layoffs before a federal judge blocked them in December.
“Sometimes a lean, mean, team makes it easier to get things done,” she said of scaling down the staff by more than 500 employees.
The Saturday ruling comes one day after Ahmad Batebi, a prominent Iranian dissident, human rights activist and VOA journalist, was fired over efforts to limit coverage of Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.