Michael Abramowitz, the director of Voice of America, was illegally fired from his role by former agency head Kari Lake, an appeals court panel ruled Tuesday.
Abramowitz was dismissed by Lake in August 2025 after refusing an ultimatum: move to a lower-level post in North Carolina or be fired. Abramowitz refused and was terminated, calling Lake’s move “illegal.”
Abramowitz was already suing the government over Lake’s effort to dismantle Voice of America, the international broadcaster first set up in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda, and asked the court to rectify his firing as well.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee who feuded with Lake and at one point threatened to hold her in contempt of court, agreed with Abramowitz that the firing was illegal. Only a Senate-confirmed body called the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, which President Donald Trump dismantled upon taking office for his second term, had the power to fire the VOA director, Lamberth ruled.
In an August 2025 ruling, Lamberth granted a motion for partial summary judgment and issued a permanent injunction blocking Abramowitz’s removal.
On Tuesday, more than a year after that ruling, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia handed Abramowitz a legal victory by affirming Lamberth’s ruling.
U.S. Circuit Judges Sri Srinivasan and Cornelia Pillard, appointees of President Barack Obama, and Florence Y. Pan, an appointee of President Joe Biden, ruled unanimously.
In a published opinion, Pillard wrote that the protections here are “not a standard employment law, but a durable barrier against any breach of the firewall protecting the journalistic integrity of Voice of America and the affiliate networks.”
Abramowitz, a former Washington Post reporter, did not immediately provide a comment. A representative for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
This represents the latest Trump administration failure in trying to dismantle Voice of America. Under Trump and Lake, the organization’s ranks have been decimated — with hundreds of employees on paid administrative leave for a year and a half — and its broadcasting capacity severely curtailed.
Lamberth ruled in March that Lake had been leading USAGM illegally and nullified many of her actions. Afterward, Trump formally nominated Sarah B. Rogers, a State Department official, to concurrently serve as the agency’s CEO. She has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.
The post Appeals court says VOA director was fired illegally by former head Kari Lake appeared first on Washington Post.
