Kari Lake’s efforts with the Trump administration’s DOGE to shut down the federal government’s media operation, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and its funding of NGOs appears likely to succeed, after a panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 on Saturday that employees placed on administrative leave may not return to work while appealing. Lake, who serves as senior advisor for USAGM, posted on X Tuesday that USAGM has started a partnership with the conservative One America News Network (OANN), with OANN providing free video and newsfeed services, hinting that perhaps this may replace the taxpayer funded operation.
The court’s ruling is an indication the judges are going to ultimately rule in favor of Lake shutting down USAGM, especially considering powerful groups haven’t assisted the agency employees with lawsuits, unlike other federal agencies that DOGE axed.
Lake (pictured here), applauded the decision on X. “BIG WIN in our legal cases at USAGM & Voice of America. Huge victory for President Trump and Article II. Turns out the District Court judge will not be able to manage the agency as he seemed to want to,” she said, referring to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth.
USAGM Senior Advisor Kari Lake / USAGM.gov
She told Fox News, “This is a huge victory for President Trump and his Article II powers granted in the United States Constitution. “We are eager to accomplish President Trump’s America First agenda which has always been to modernize and make our government efficient while cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Lamberth has issued some of the longest sentences to the January 6 defendants and repeatedly ruled against Jacob Chansley, aka the QAnon Shaman. Lamberth was removed from handling a lawsuit against the Bush administration’s Interior Department in 2006 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit due to calling the agency racist. In 2010, he agreed with the Obama administration and overruled a lower judge who had determined that the DOJ needed to notify conservative reporter James Rosen that a search warrant had been issued for his emails and phone records.
The USAGM oversees six federally funded broadcast networks. One is Voice of America, which Lake was initially tapped to oversee, is comprised of both government employees and contractors. The other five are NGOs funded by grants from USAGM. On March 14, 2025, Trump issued Executive Order 14238, which directed USAGM leadership to reduce the agency to the minimum level of operations required by statute, which included placing 1,000 employees on leave, terminating agreements with contractors, and halting the grants. The employees, as well as contractors and NGOs, filed lawsuits challenging the executive order.
The employees immediately appealed Saturday’s decision to the full D.C. Court of Appeals. That same 3-judge panel had earlier ruled in favor of the employees just two days before reversing their decision, initially upholding Lamberth’s decision.
Trump-appointed Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao issued the decision, with a dissent by U.S. Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee. The majority said the two NGOs did not have the power to sue the government over the termination. “If a claim against the United States is contractual ‘at its essence,’ district courts have no power to resolve it,” they wrote. “The government is likely to succeed on the merits because the district court likely lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to enjoin USAGM’s personnel actions and to compel the agency to restore RFA’s and MBN’s FY 2025 grants.”
The opinion went on, “This intrusion is particularly harmful because it implicates the Executive Branch’s foreign-affairs authority.” The justices specifically addressed the lower court judge’s intrusion into that area. “By depriving the Executive Branch of control over the individuals involved in its international broadcasting, the injunction threatens its prerogative to ‘speak with one voice’ on behalf of the United States in foreign affairs,” said the court.
The justices added, “Loss of government employment generally does not constitute irreparable injury, citing case law.” In contrast, “The government has shown that it will face irreparable harm absent a stay.”
The opinion cited a recent decision by the Supreme Court which found that a trial court likely lacked authority to grant an injunction against the Trump administration’s cuts of grants from the Department of Education.
The justices did not address VOA. “We need not consider any potential harm from shuttering VOA; the district court ordered USAGM to resume VOA’s statutorily required programming levels, and the government has not sought to stay that provision of the injunction.” According to The Hill, those employees were told last week they could return to work.
Radio Free Europe filed a separate lawsuit and received a temporary injunction, which the appeals court also did not address but said the government has filed a motion to stay the injunction.
The White House issued an extensive fact sheet on March 15 titled “The Radical Voice of America” going over the problems with the agency. It quoted Dan Robinson, a 34-year veteran of Voice of America and its former White House correspondent. “I have monitored the agency’s bureaucracy along with many of its reporters and concluded that it has essentially become a hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting a leftist bias aligned with partisan national media,” he said. ”It has sought to avoid accountability for violations of journalistic standards and mismanagement.”
VOA’s “management told staff not to call Hamas and its members terrorists, ‘except when quoting statements,’” the fact sheet said. “Multiple Voice of America (VOA) reporters have repeatedly posted anti-Trump comments on their professional Twitter accounts, despite a social media policy requiring employee impartiality on social media platforms.”
An inside source told The Arizona Sun Times that the lawsuits filed challenging the DOGE cuts are funded by taxpayers.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “USAGM at Work” by USAGM.
