A U.S. appeals court on Saturday blocked a lower court ruling that ordered the Trump administration to return 1,000 Voice of America staffers back to work amid efforts to downsize the federal government.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees the media agencies, placed more than 1,000 employees on leave and told 600 contractors they would be terminated after the agency shut down broadcasts in March under a directive from President Donald Trump.
In their Saturday order, appeals court judges Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas ruled in the government’s favor.
“While USAGM’s employees and contractors might have viable, discrete claims with respect to their individual personnel actions, those claims must be pursued through other remedial channels,” the judges wrote in their 39-page order.
The duo added that “of course, we recognize that the public has an interest in the Executive Branch’s compliance with congressional mandates” but added that “the public has an interest in the Judicial Branch’s respect for the jurisdictional boundaries laid down by Congress.”
“We must respect those boundaries no less than the substantive and appropriations provisions governing the operation of USAGM,” they wrote.
Meanwhile, appeals court Judge Cornelia Pillard dissented, saying that “the purpose of a stay pending appeal is to maintain the status quo until a case can be fully adjudicated on its merits.”
“This stay does the opposite, silencing Voice of America for the foreseeable future and eliminating Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks’ ability to see this case through to the end,” Pillard wrote.
Trump adviser Kari Lake, a former Republican Arizona Senate and gubernatorial candidate, announced the shutdown on March 15, placing nearly all USAGM employees on leave, saying the agency was “irretrievably broken.”
In the order on April 22, Lambeth had written that he believes VOA and other agencies under USAGM serve as “consistently reliable and authoritative” news sources. He argued that the government acted “without regard to the harm inflicted on employees, contractors, journalists, and media consumers around the world.”
“In short, the defendants had no method or approach towards shutting down USAGM that this Court can discern,” he wrote. “They took immediate and drastic action to slash USAGM, without considering its statutorily or constitutionally required functions as required by the plain language of the [executive order].”
An article released by the administration included reports and accounts that it says shows VOA has been effectively overrun by leftist partisans or bowed to pressure from foreign governments, including Russia and China.
“The VOA Journalists have devoted their careers to helping to build USAGM’s networks into a credible media force with global audiences in the hundreds of millions,” the filing said, in part.
It added, “What is happening to the VOA Journalists is not just the chilling of First Amendment speech; it is a government shutdown of journalism, a prior restraint that kills content before it can be created.”