Trump ‘stands strongly’ behind Pete Hegseth after Signal leak, White House says

The cuts also “reflect a hasty, indiscriminate approach: for example, the Networks received the termination letters on the exact same day that President Trump signed the Third Continuing Resolution appropriating line-item funds to the Networks through the end of the fiscal year,” Lamberth wrote. “Certainly, disbursing congressional appropriations are statutorily required, and the agency axed them the very same day they were enacted.”

The administration had countered in court filings that the Agency for Global Media is “still standing,” an assertion that Lamberth said “strains credulity.”

He wrote that Voice of America “has cultivated an audience of 425 million listeners who rely on VOA’s output—particularly in areas of the world where a free press is otherwise unavailable.”

Now, as “a result of the defendants’ actions, VOA is not reporting the news for the first time in its 80-year existence.”

Lamberth ordered that Agency for Global Media employees be returned to the status they had before the March 14 executive order, and he ordered the government to restore the grants the agency provides to Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. He also asked for monthly status reports to ensure the government is complying with his order.

Everett Kelley, the president of one of the labor unions involved in the court challenge, hailed the ruling, saying, “This preliminary injunction will allow these employees to get back to work as we continue the fight to preserve their jobs and critical mission.”