A federal judge on Wednesday accused the Trump administration of essentially ignoring his orders to restore American operations and clearly explaining what it is doing in government-run businesses that provide news to other countries.
US District Judge Lois Lambers, for the District of Columbia, gave the administration until August 13th, explaining how the VOA would work again. The outlet, dating back to World War II, has been pretty much dark since March.
Lamberth said the administration needs to show what it is doing with the $260 million Congress that was allocated to VOA’s business this year.
Kari Lake, an adviser appointed by Trump to run government news outlets, said in June 85% of VOA employees and supervisors at US global media agencies lost their jobs. She called it “a long effort to dismantle the bloated, inexplainable bureaucracy.”
Lamberth said there is a process to eliminate previously allocated funds. Congress must vote on it, as they have done recently for NPR and PBS funding. But that’s not happening here, he said.
He scolded the administration by providing a “cage answer” in a previous court order and omitting important information when asked to do so.
“Without further explanation, the court is up to conclude that the court is only trying to run out of clocks for the fiscal year without assigning the legislature towards its intended purpose,” Lambers wrote. “The legal term for this is “waste.” ”
There were no immediate comments from the White House.
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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment on the AP. Follow him in http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
