A federal appeals court on Tuesday paused a lower-court ruling that ordered the Trump administration to reinstate all full-time Voice of America reporters and support staff who were put on paid leave after President Trump moved to shutter the federally funded news agency.
The ruling, by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, will prevent about 1,000 Voice of America journalists from quickly returning to work. Voice of America’s parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, had been reinstating about 70 employees a week after the lower-court order earlier this month.
In a statement, the agency said that it was “encouraged” by the appeals court ruling, which it said would allow it to continue to “advance President Trump’s agenda without disruption as the legal process moves forward.”
The agency did not say whether journalists it had recently reinstated would be placed back on paid leave.
Since March 2025, Mr. Trump has pushed to dismantle V.O.A., a government-funded news group that broadcasts to countries with limited press freedoms, including Russia, China and Iran. Voice of America, which had provided news in 49 languages to more than 360 million people each week, has sharply scaled back its operations, broadcasting in only a handful of languages for a few hours each day.
But bipartisan members of Congress, warning that U.S. adversaries would fill the vacuum with propaganda and disinformation, passed a bill continuing funding for Voice of America, defying Mr. Trump’s push to shut it down.
The lower court judge, Royce C. Lamberth of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, had also largely blocked Mr. Trump’s efforts.
On March 7, Judge Lamberth ruled that Kari Lake, a fierce Trump ally who led the efforts to shut down V.O.A. as head of its parent agency, had been appointed illegally, voiding all directives she approved, including mass layoffs. On March 17, he vacated all actions the Trump administration had taken to reduce V.O.A. operations, including placing more than 1,000 employees on paid leave.
The Trump administration appealed only the order requiring employees to be reinstated. It has not appealed other parts of Judge Lamberth’s ruling, leaving in place, for now, the ruling vacating the administration’s other actions to close down Voice of America.
Ms. Lake, who still serves as the deputy chief executive of V.O.A.’s parent agency, did not answer a question on agency plans but said in an email that The Times journalists “must be curled up in a ball, sobbing” after the appeals court ruling.
Apart from its efforts to fight Judge Lamberth’s order, the global media agency has ramped up hiring in recent weeks, according to public job postings. The agency has sought reporters for V.O.A.’s Persian, Dari, Pashto, Mandarin, Russian and Korean services as contractors, not as full-time employees who receive protections as federal workers.
Minho Kim reports on breaking news for The Times from Washington.
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