A federal judge ruled Saturday that Kari Lake’s appointment to lead Voice of America’s oversight agency was not valid, nullifying mass layoffs she implemented in 2025.
Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia made the decision, which, if upheld by higher courts, could lead to the reinstatement of more than 1,000 employees.
Lamberth’s ruling is viewed as a major pushback on President Donald Trump’s efforts to pull apart the federally funded news group (that was launched in 1942 as a counter to Nazi propaganda.) Lake, who was tapped to lead the VOA’s parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, made it clear she will appeal the decision.
Still, the judge called out Trump’s selection of Lake without a Senate confirmation as “violence to the statutory and constitutional scheme.”
Lamberth found that Lake’s designation violated the Vacancies Act, which limits who can serve as acting head of a Senate-confirmed agency — given she was not the second senior officer, a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee or a senior officer already at the agency before the vacancy.
Lake had previously argued that she had not officially assumed the position, but that the responsibilities were simply assigned to her — thus, she defended that she was allowed power over layoff and funding decisions (power she acted on last year.)
Lamberth was unconvinced, however, and hit back that “allowing the president to circumvent Congress’s carefully crafted limitations” violated the Constitution’s intentions.
In addition to sharing her plans to appeal, Lake spoke out against Judge Lamberth to media outlets, blasting him as an “an activist judge,” who she said was working against Trump’s efforts to “cut bloated bureaucracy, eliminate waste and restore accountability to government.”
In contrast, the Voice of America staffers who sued the Trump administration, including Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper, said they felt “vindicated and deeply grateful” over the ruling.
This update comes after a tumultuous year for Voice of America, which saw over 600 workers at VOA and its parent company being pink slipped in June, and then an additional 500-plus impacted in August.
At the time, Lake defended the decision as a way to improve “a very broken agency.”
“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,” she noted in a statement on X. “We are conducting this RIF at the President’s direction to help reduce the federal bureaucracy, improve agency service, and save the American people more of their hard-earned money. USAGM will continue to fulfill its statutory mission after this RIF— and will likely improve its ability to function and provide the truth to people across the world who live under murderous Communist governments and other tyrannical regimes. 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.”
The layoffs were a part of Trump’s larger war on public broadcasters, where the president signed an executive order last March aiming to gut VOA and several other federal agencies. In the aftermath, VOA employees were then placed on administrative leave, disrupting some broadcasts and prompting the aforementioned VOA employees to sue the Trump Administration, demanding service be restored.
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