On August 28, 2025, a federal judge in Washington delivered a decisive rebuke to the Trump administration, blocking its attempt to remove Michael Abramowitz as director of Voice of America (VOA), the storied government-funded broadcaster. The ruling, issued by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, underscored the limits of executive power over federally funded media and set a precedent for the autonomy of American international broadcasters in the face of political pressure.
The legal battle began earlier this year, when Kari Lake—a prominent ally of former President Donald Trump and a figure with a rising profile in conservative politics—was appointed as senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees VOA. Lake quickly moved to assert control, sending all VOA staff on administrative leave and pausing funding for other U.S.-funded language services. These actions followed an executive order signed by Trump, aimed at restricting the agency’s powers and, in the administration’s view, reorienting VOA toward an "America First" editorial stance—a move many Republicans applauded, according to Nexstar Media.
But Michael Abramowitz, a former Washington Post reporter who took the helm of VOA in 2019, pushed back. He insisted that only a majority vote from the International Broadcasting Advisory Board—a body created to ensure editorial independence—could lawfully remove him. The situation grew more complex when President Trump, in January 2025, removed all members of the advisory board, effectively eliminating the legal mechanism for removing or appointing VOA’s director. This left Abramowitz in a precarious position, as Lake and her team moved to consolidate power at the agency.
In June 2025, the administration issued layoff notices to more than 600 employees of VOA and the agency that oversees it, marking one of the largest mass layoffs in the broadcaster’s history. Abramowitz, along with almost the entire VOA staff, was placed on administrative leave. He was formally notified that he would be fired effective August 31, 2025, after refusing to accept a new role as Chief Operating Officer for management in Greenville, North Carolina. In a letter, Abramowitz called the move "illegal," stressing that he could only be removed with the board’s consent. The layoffs and administrative actions left VOA—a network that, along with its sister organizations, reaches an estimated 427 million people worldwide—stripped to what the Trump administration called its "minimum presence and function required by law."
Lake’s efforts to shrink and reshape the agency did not stop there. She fired 500 contractors in May and attempted to terminate over 600 full-time staffers in June, though the latter move was delayed by administrative hurdles. In July, she further consolidated control by placing USAGM’s acting CEO, Victor Morales, on administrative leave and assuming the role of deputy CEO herself. Lake’s actions drew sharp criticism from inside and outside the agency, with many seeing them as an attempt to gut the broadcaster’s independence.
The conflict soon landed in federal court. Abramowitz, backed by a group of journalists led by former White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara, sued Lake and the government, arguing that her actions violated statutory mandates designed to protect VOA’s editorial autonomy. Judge Lamberth, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, agreed that the law was clear: "The applicable statutory requirements could not be clearer: the director of Voice of America ‘may only be removed if such action has been approved by a majority vote’" of the advisory board, Lamberth wrote in his ruling, as reported by CNN and Nexstar Media. "The merits are decided, and there is no longer a question of whether the termination was unlawful."
However, the situation was complicated by the fact that the Trump administration’s earlier removal of all board members created a quorum problem—there was simply no board left to approve or reject Abramowitz’s removal. As Judge Lamberth noted, "the current lack of a board quorum creates a practical barrier to removing Abramowitz, [but] the Broadcasting Act provides the President with a direct remedy: replacement of the removed members." In other words, the administration’s own actions had made it impossible to legally carry out the removal they sought.
Throughout the proceedings, Judge Lamberth was openly critical of the government’s conduct. In a June hearing, he pressed government lawyers on why they had not informed the court about the mass layoffs and whether they were truly complying with his earlier injunctions. When a government representative insisted the order was being carried out "in good faith," Lamberth retorted, "I don’t think so." His skepticism only grew as Lake and her aides failed to provide clear information about their intentions for VOA, prompting him to order Lake and two other officials to testify under oath by September 15, 2025, for possible contempt of court.
Lake, for her part, did not mince words in her public criticism of the judge. On a radio show this month, she complained, "Of course I’ve got a judge here in Washington, D.C.—I’ve got five cases against me as I try to scale this monster, this beast back and rightsize it. I mean, I’ve got a judge who’s threatening me with contempt of court, throwing me in prison, if I don’t produce more of the propaganda that he wants me to produce." Despite the court’s rebuke, Lake signaled plans to proceed with a mass reduction-in-force, which could see more than 500 agency employees—most of whom have been on paid administrative leave since March—terminated in the coming days.
The legal wrangling has left VOA in a state of limbo. With its leadership in question, its staff decimated, and its future uncertain, the broadcaster faces challenges not only to its operations but also to its core mission of providing independent news to audiences around the world. Yet, as Judge Lamberth’s ruling makes clear, the law still offers some protection against political interference. The case has established a precedent that staffing decisions at VOA cannot be dictated by political actors alone, reinforcing the broadcaster’s autonomy at a critical juncture.
As the litigation continues and the administration weighs its options, the fate of VOA—and the broader question of how much influence political leaders should have over government-funded media—remains unresolved. For now, however, Michael Abramowitz remains at the helm, a testament to the enduring, if embattled, principle of editorial independence in American international broadcasting.
