Press freedom organizations are celebrating the court decision invalidating Kari Lake’s tenure at Voice of America and nullifying the mass layoffs she ordered last year.
Reporters without Borders’ Executive Director Clayton Weimers, said the Saturday evening ruling “confirms what we knew when we first filed this lawsuit almost one year ago: that Kari Lake and the Trump administration acted unlawfully in gutting Voice of America (VOA). There is still more to unpack in this decision and work to be done to ensure VOA’s journalists get back to work. Beyond the immediate implications of the decision, this case is proof that fighting for press freedom matters.”
Lake, a former local news anchor and failed gubernatorial and Senate candidate, had tried to dismantle Voice of America, the U.S. government-funded international broadcaster created during World War II to provide news to a global audience, particularly to countries with little to no press freedom. Lake left her position as CEO on Nov. 19.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth found that Lake was ineligible to serve as acting CEO of the United States Agency for Global Media, Voice of America’s parent company, when she was appointed to the position in July without Senate approval.
“The Court finds that these expansive delegations were an unlawful effort to transform Lake into the CEO of U.S. Agency for Global Media in all but name,” Lamberth wrote, adding that “Lake satisfies the requirements of neither the statute nor the Constitution.”
Lake called the decision “bogus” and vowed to appeal it.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the country’s largest trade union for public sector employees, called the ruling “a major victory for the federal workers who Kari Lake and this administration have been attempting to illegally fire for the last year.”
“Voice of America employees are dedicated public servants who provide hope for freedom to those living under oppressive governments around the world,” Saunders said. “Yet time and again, this administration has attempted to strip these proud AFSCME members of their collective bargaining freedoms and their jobs.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.