A Trump administration official has announced that more than 500 employees at the agency that runs Voice of America, and other U.S. government-funded international broadcasters will lose their jobs. This move will likely start a legal challenge that might drag on for months, deciding the agency’s fate.
Kari Lake, the acting CEO of the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) announced the reduction via X. “The US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) has initiated what is known as a reduction in force (RIF) of a large number of its full-time federal employees,” she said. “I look forward to taking additional steps in the coming months to improve the functioning of a very broken agency and make sure America’s voice is heard abroad where it matters most.”
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This comes despite a federal judge stopping Lake from firing Michael Abramowitz as VOA director, saying his removal would be “plainly contrary to law.” Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth also separately ruled President Donald Trump’s administration had yet to show it was complying with orders to restore VOA’s operations. His order on Monday gave the administration “one final opportunity, short of a contempt trial” to comply and ordered Lake to sit for a deposition for agency employees by Sept.15.
A group of employees who sued to block VOA’s elimination said Lake’s move would give their colleagues 30 days until their pay and benefits end. “We find Lake’s continued attacks on our agency abhorrent,” they said in a statement. “We are looking forward to her deposition to hear whether her plan to dismantle VOA was done with the rigorous review process that Congress requires. So far we have not seen any evidence of that.”
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Layoff notices were sent to over 600 agency employees in June. Abramowitz was placed on administrative leave along with almost the entire VOA staff. He was told he would be fired effective Aug. 31. The administration said in a court filing that it planned to send RIF notices to 486 employees of VOA and 46 other agency employees but intended to retain 158 agency employees and 108 VOA employees. The filing at the global media agency had 137 “active employees” and 62 other employees on administrative leave while VOA had 86 active employees and 512 others on administrative leave.
The agency also oversees Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. These networks reach around 427 million people, and date back to the Cold War.
President Trump had ordered the withdrawal of federal funds and cutdown of international broadcaster Voice of America to the minimum allowed by Congress, back when he first took office in January.