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

A federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration today to restore Voice of America programming and to let the employees who work for the agency that runs it to go back to work.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said in a ruling that the administration went way too far and that it is “likely in direct violation of numerous federal laws.” It had sought to largely shut down the U.S. Agency for Global Media after Trump signed an executive order that called for trimming the agency to the “maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”

“The defendants had no method or approach towards shutting down USAGM that this Court can discern,” Lamberth wrote. “They took immediate and drastic action to slash USAGM, without considering its statutorily or constitutionally required functions as required by the plain language of the EO, and without regard to the harm inflicted on employees, contractors, journalists, and media consumers around the world. It is hard to fathom a more straightforward display of arbitrary and capricious actions than the Defendants’ actions here.”

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.”

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