Federal judge orders Voice of America to reinstate staff

A federal judge has ordered the parent agency to reinstate 1,042 employees by Monday, after the Trump administration put them on paid administrative leave last year.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, issued two rulings on Tuesday regarding VOA, almost exactly a year after President Trump sought to dismantle the federally funded international broadcast agency, which operates under the U.S. Agency for Global Media, CNN reported.

VOA has been mostly silent since last year, as its website has had no updates since March 15, 2025.

Lamberth ordered VOA’s news reporting and programming be restored. He also ruled that Trump’s pick to manage VOA, Kari Lake, and other defendants “are unlawfully withholding mandatory agency action.”

Lamberth also threw out all the actions Lake took to follow through on Trump’s order to strip Global Media down to the “minimum presence and function required by law.”

Tuesday’s ruling came after Lamberth decided earlier this month that Lake unlawfully ran USAGM for several months last year, and he voided the attempted mass layoffs.

Following the ruling from earlier this month, Lake criticized Lamberth and said she would appeal his decision. She did not have an immediate reaction to Tuesday’s rulings for CNN. A USAGM spokesperson did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

The rulings are the result of lawsuits brought by VOA’s sidelined director and three USAGM employees.

The three employees – Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper – said in a joint statement following the court orders that they “are eager to begin repairing the damage Kari Lake has inflicted on our agency and our colleagues, to return to our congressional mandate, and to rebuild the trust of the global audience we have been unable to serve for the past year.”

“We know the road to restoring VOA’s operations and reputation will be long and difficult,” the employees said. “We hope the American people will continue to support our mission to produce journalism, not propaganda.”

VOA Director Michael Abramowitz, whom Lake attempted to fire last summer, told CNN, “We are thrilled with Judge Lamberth’s ruling and look forward to getting back to work. Voice of America has never been more needed.”

Lamberth concluded earliest this month that Lake was ineligible to serve as USAGM’s acting CEO when she was formally elevated to the position last year in an “acting capacity” and without Senate confirmation. She relinquished that position in November 2026, but in what capacity, if any, she serves in the agency remains unclear.