The conflict over Voice of America's future is coming to a head as a federal judge demands answers from Kari Lake, who is overseeing its federal parent for the Trump White House.
The stakes were sharpened Monday when Michael Abramowitz, the director of the government-funded international broadcaster, filed legal documents saying the U.S. Agency for Global Media's top officials are seeking to fire him illegally. Abramowitz is among a group of journalists suing the administration.
In new legal briefs filed Tuesday, U.S. Justice Department lawyers argued the president has almost unfettered power to determine who holds positions of authority in the executive branch, including the U.S. Agency for Global Media. It is the first time the government has asserted such expansive powers in this case, though it has made related arguments in litigation surrounding its actions in other corners of the executive branch.
The judge overseeing the Abramowitz suit and related cases has written that he is worried that Lake and the agency are failing to comply with his earlier order to ensure the Voice of America is fulfilling its congressionally mandated role to provide reliable news to all corners of the world.
Judge Royce C. Lamberth wrote in an order on July 30 that Lake and the government had failed to tell him of planned mass reductions in force or the "monumental personnel decision" of removing Abramowitz as director and reassigning him to North Carolina from its Washington, D.C. headquarters. Lamberth noted Lake's statement on the right-wing investigative site called "Just the News": "I'm working to eliminate the agency, and it's been a big job, but we're working hard at it."
Lake told NPR later that day that the judge was "another example of a federal judiciary that is activist and out of control."
On Aug. 1, John Zadrozny, a senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, informed Abramowitz that he would be dismissed for refusing to accept the proposed reassignment, which was to become the chief administrative officer at a shortwave radio facility in Greenville, N.C. The letter said Lake would have the final word on the decision. Neither Zadrozny nor Lake responded to NPR's requests for comment.
"I think it's tragic," former Voice of America Director David Ensor told NPR. "Michael is a highly experienced and talented journalist and leader of relatively large organizations — he is not an engineer. This idea that he should be sent to an engineering facility for helping shortwave radio around the world doesn't make any sense at all."
"What it's really about — obviously everybody understands this — is trying to get rid of Mike Abramowitz as part of the process of trying to get rid of Voice of America."
The North Carolina facility has just three full-time employees, according to Kate Neeper, Voice of America's chief strategy officer.
Like Abramowitz, Neeper is currently on paid leave. She is also among the group of employees, unions and journalism advocacy organizations suing the agency and Lake. Almost all contractors have had their employment severed; nearly all full-time employees were put on paid leave and told their positions would be eliminated.
Voice of America currently has 72 full-time employees, government lawyers say. It had nearly 1,300 permanent and contract employees before the Trump administration sought to dismantle it, Abramowitz's civil complaint against the government states. It has plunged from offering services in 49 languages to four.
In the final months of Trump's first term in the White House, officials at the U.S. Agency for Global Media embarked on a wave of firings, suspensions, and internal investigations of Voice of America journalists for bias. A federal judge found illegal and unconstitutional acts; an inspector general found "waste or gross waste" by Trump-appointed CEO Michael Pack; and investigators for the Office of Special Counsel found abuses of power and violations of legal protections of the editorial independence of the Voice of America's newsroom.
Congress passed a law in early January 2021 requiring that a majority of a bipartisan advisory board vote for the removal of the head of Voice of America or its sister networks.
Upon retaking office this year, Trump dismissed the members of the board and it has not been reconstituted. And Lake recommenced the war on the Voice of America. Given the 2021 law, it is not clear whether Lake has the statutory power to dismiss Abramowitz without the explicit backing of that panel, which does not currently have any members.
"As a bipartisan body with diverse perspectives, we have varied views about the ideal structure of U.S. international broadcasting and necessary reforms, but we are united in our belief in U.S. international broadcasting's importance to our national security," a joint statement sent to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in late June by all but one of the panel's dismissed members stated. "We urge Congress to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities and prevent the wanton destruction of these important institutions that have advanced American interests for so long."
The Justice Department legal team, led by Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate, argued in papers filed on Tuesday that the 2021 law passed by Congress was unconstitutional. "The removal power is vested in the Chief Executive Officer as the head of the Agency acting on the President's behalf—not the Advisory Board," the department wrote.
Lake did not respond to NPR's queries about when she took on the title of acting chief executive at the U.S. Agency for Global Media — a title first seen publicly in Abramowitz's filings on Monday.
A two-time unsuccessful MAGA candidate for statewide office in Arizona, Lake has emerged as one of Trump's most outspoken advocates, assailing Voice of America and other federally funded international broadcasters on Fox News, Newsmax and other right-wing sites. And she has been happy to take the fight against other media outlets, including CBS, NPR and ABC.
Since her appointment as senior advisor to the agency in late February, she has adopted a series of job titles.
Lake described herself in a note sent in early March to staff as "the senior advisor for the administration."
In May, as she announced that she had struck a deal with the far-right network OAN to get rights to use its content and coverage on Voice of America without cost, Lake called herself the senior advisor to the agency's chief operating officer. The agency does not have a chief operating officer and has not had one in recent years, according to Neeper, the chief strategy officer, and others. Lake again referred to herself as senior advisor to the COO in June.
In early July, the agency fulfilled a White House request that Lake become the deputy CEO, according to two people with knowledge of the request. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to fears of professional repercussions. Later that month, Lake filed a declaration with the court listing her title as "senior advisor to the acting CEO." The acting CEO, a veteran Voice of America and agency staffer named Victor Morales, had been ousted by late July.
The Aug. 1 memo to Abramowitz spelling out that the agency is moving to fire him refers to Lake as "Acting Chief Executive Officer of USAGM." It is not clear by what process she was appointed to that role.
Lake and the Trump administration won an appellate court ruling earlier this summer that knocked down some of Judge Lamberth's rulings against her actions at the agency. The requirement that Voice of America "serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news" survived the administration's appeal.
In his July 30 order, Lamberth gave Lake and the government until next Wednesday evening to file a full explanation of what she's doing at the agency — and what's in store for the Voice of America.
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