Judge blocks Voice of America CEO Kari Lake from firing 500 employees, threatens her with contempt

A Reagan judge has temporarily blocked Voice of America (VOA) CEO Kari Lake from firing 500 employees and threatened her with contempt.

Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in a blistering decision Monday that he would have pursued contempt proceedings against Lake except for the fact that the plaintiffs in the case hadn’t asked for that.

NEW: A D.C. federal judge has blocked the planned layoff of over 500 Voice of America employees, saying the RIF would potentially foreclose the Trump administration’s ability to comply with his April injunction ordering the restoration of VOA programming. pic.twitter.com/xmoEyvqOTW

— Jared Foretek (@JaredForetek) September 30, 2025

He wrote that Lake’s “disregard for [the court’s] earlier orders to produce information would more than support a trial on civil contempt.”

He further warned that his decision not to pursue contempt charges “should not be mistaken for lenience toward the defendants’ egregious erstwhile conduct.”

The ruling came after Lake in August announced that the VOA would be eliminating 532 positions:

ANNOUNCEMENT—
U.S. Agency for Global Media Eliminates 532 Government Positions
Washington, D.C. – Tonight, the U.S. Agency for Global Media initiated what is known as a reduction in force, or RIF, of a large number of its full-time federal employees. We are conducting this RIF at… pic.twitter.com/LWeO9w0RNQ

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) August 30, 2025

Lamberth’s ruling will maintain the current status quo, including the 532 positions, until he makes a final decision on Lake’s terminations.

What angered the judge was that Lake’s decision last month to fire 500+ staff members violated an injunction he enacted in March requiring VOA to restore its international news coverage so that it could “serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.”

The judge also complained about Lake’s communication with the court.

“Time and time again, the defendants have resisted the Court’s efforts to obtain information concerning whether they have fashioned a plan for compliance,” he wrote.

“The Court no longer harbors any doubt that defendants lack a plan to comply with the preliminary injunction, and instead have been running out the clock on the fiscal year while remaining in violation of even the most meager reading of USAGM and Voice of America’s statutory obligations,” he added.

The three plaintiffs representing VOA’s staff members celebrated the ruling.

“We believe the wholesale silencing of V.O.A. broadcasts and the removal of critical staff and expertise go against what Congress intended,” they said, according to the New York Times.

It was President Donald Trump who signed an executive order months ago calling for the VOA to be shut down.

REPORT: The Voice of America has put all of its journalists on administrative leave, and the agency is fully shut down.

The VOA employees were claiming that they were having to engage in “self-censorship on Trump policies,” but is that true?

The reality is that VOA was filled… pic.twitter.com/1huATdNDgO

— Walter Curt (@WCdispatch_) March 15, 2025

“Since Mr. Trump ordered its closure, Voice of America has broadcast about an hour per day in four languages: Chinese, Persian, and the two languages spoken mainly in Afghanistan, Dari and Pashto,” the Times noted.

“That is a significant reduction from a 24-hour news service that the agency ran before March, when it served more than 360 million people in 49 languages across the world every week,” the Times complained.

This isn’t the first example of Lake attempting to fire VOA employees. In June, she produced layoff documents that wound up containing a slew of errors, including incorrect years of service, birth dates, and veteran status.

“Her agency rescinded the layoff notices a week after they were sent, as those errors could have kicked off a lengthy legal process that could eventually void the layoffs,” the Times noted.

Also, in July, the Trump administration directly tried to fire the Voice of America’s director, Mike Abramowitz, after he reportedly refused to accept a demotion and a reassignment to North Carolina.

Lamberth blocked that firing as well, calling it “unlawful.”

“The judge found that the termination lacked consent from a bipartisan board that has the sole authority to hire and fire the heads of federally funded news organizations, a firewall intended to buttress their editorial independence,” according to the Times.

Senior Staff Writer
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V. Saxena is a staff writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.

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