{"id":265295,"date":"2025-09-30T01:46:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/265295\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T01:46:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:46:16","slug":"judge-suspends-plan-to-cut-hundreds-of-voice-of-america-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/265295\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge suspends plan to cut hundreds of Voice of America jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge agreed Monday to temporarily suspend<\/a> the Trump administration\u2019s plan to eliminate hundreds of jobs at the agency that oversees Voice of America, the government-funded broadcaster founded to counter Nazi propaganda during World War II.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., ruled that the U.S. Agency for Global Media cannot implement a reduction in force<\/a> eliminating 532 jobs for full-time government employees on Tuesday. Those employees represent the vast majority of its remaining staff.<\/p>\n

Kari Lake, the agency\u2019s acting CEO, announced in late August that the job cuts would take effect Tuesday. But the judge\u2019s ruling preserves the status quo at the agency until he rules on a plaintiffs\u2019 underlying motion to block the reduction in force.<\/p>\n

Lamberth previously ruled that President Donald Trump\u2019s Republican administration must restore VOA programming to levels commensurate with its statutory mandate to \u201cserve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.\u201d He also blocked Lake<\/a> from removing Michael Abramowitz as VOA\u2019s director. <\/p>\n

Judge cites \u2018concerning disrespect\u2019 toward court from administration<\/p>\n

Lamberth accused the administration of showing \u201cconcerning disrespect\u201d toward the court in response to his earlier orders to produce information about its plans for Voice of America. He noted that the agency initiated the job cuts only hours after a hearing last month in which government lawyers said a reduction in force, or RIF, was merely a possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendants\u2019 obfuscation of this Court\u2019s request for information regarding whether their RIF plans comported with the preliminary injunction has wasted precious judicial time and resources and readily support contempt proceedings,\u201d Lamberth wrote.<\/p>\n

But he said he wouldn\u2019t initiate contempt proceedings on his own because the plaintiffs haven\u2019t sought it yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, (the court\u2019s) deference to the plaintiffs with respect to further proceedings should not be mistaken for lenience toward the defendants\u2019 egregious erstwhile conduct,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Employees who sued to block the dismantling of Voice of America claimed the planned cuts would hamper the judge\u2019s ability to enforce the injunction he issued in April. \u201cThis Court should therefore preserve the status quo while the parties litigate compliance,\u201d their attorneys wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Government lawyers accused the plaintiffs of impermissibly trying to micromanage the agency\u2019s operations. \u201cEnjoining the reductions in force would be a wholly overbroad and improper remedy,\u201d they wrote<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Lamberth, a senior judge, was nominated to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1987.<\/p>\n

Can media agency continue to fulfill its \u2018statutory mission\u2019?<\/p>\n

The U.S. Agency for Global Media also houses Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. The networks, which together reach an estimated 427 million people, date to the Cold War and are part of a network of government-funded organizations trying to extend U.S. influence and combat authoritarianism.<\/p>\n

Congress appropriated $875 million to the agency for fiscal year 2025 and required that $260 million of the funds must be spent by VOA.<\/p>\n

In March, Trump signed an executive order called for the agency to reduce its \u201cstatutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.\u201d A day later, VOA stopped broadcasting for the first time in 83 years. The agency placed almost all of its full-time employees on administrative leave.<\/p>\n

In announcing the job cuts on social media last month, Lake said the agency \u201cwill continue to fulfill its statutory mission … and will likely improve its ability to function.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to taking additional steps in the coming months to improve the functioning of a very broken agency and make sure America\u2019s voice is heard abroad where it matters most,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs\u2019 attorney Georgina Yeomans argued Monday that the cuts would cement the agency\u2019s programming at deficient levels that don\u2019t comply with the judge\u2019s orders. Yeomans said it\u2019s unclear who at the agency is making key decisions, such as which jobs to eliminate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe simply do not know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge agreed Monday to temporarily suspend the Trump administration\u2019s plan to eliminate hundreds…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":265296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[3881,2122,64,356,12785,84,69,171,57,138485,28070,362,138486,50,15119,138484,61,67,370,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-265295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-arts-and-entertainment","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-dc-wire","14":"tag-district-of-columbia","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-georgina-yeomans","19":"tag-kari-lake","20":"tag-legal-proceedings","21":"tag-michael-abramowitz","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-ronald-reagan","24":"tag-royce-c-lamberth","25":"tag-u-s-news","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-united-states-government","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115290726924266613","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}