Judge blocks Kari Lake from firing Voice of America’s director

A federal judge in Washington blocked the Trump administration from firing Michael Abramowitz as Voice of America’s director Thursday, weeks after Kari Lake first attempted to remove him from the post.

Abramowitz, a former Washington Post reporter who has led the U.S. government-funded broadcasting organization since last year, maintained that only a Senate-confirmed advisory board had authority to remove him as VOA director. But President Donald Trump removed all members of the board in January.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, agreed with Abramowtiz on Thursday, having heard arguments in a hearing Monday. He ruled that without a majority vote from the Senate-confirmed board, Lake did not have the authority to remove Abramowitz.

Abramowitz was notified in an Aug. 1 letter from John A. Zadrozny, a senior adviser at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, that because he would not accept a job running a broadcasting station in North Carolina, he would be removed from federal employment.

Lake, a Republican politician who ran unsuccessful races for Arizona governor in 2022 and U.S. Senate in 2024, was tapped by Trump to lead the agency. But by firing the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, Trump removed the legal mechanism to instate Lake and to remove Abramowitz. Instead, Lake was given the title of senior adviser to the CEO of the USAGM before eventually becoming its deputy CEO in July.

Abramowitz was placed on administrative leave in March along with more than 1,000 USAGM employees when Trump issued an executive order aimed at chiseling the agency down to its “minimum presence and function required by law.” Abramowitz sued Lake in federal court, arguing that her actions to tear down the agency - and, more recently, fire him - are illegal.

Lake then fired 500 contractors at USAGM in May, attempted to fire more than 600 full-time staffers in June (which has been delayed due to administrative problems) and further consolidated power at the agency in July by placing USAGM’s acting CEO, Victor Morales, on administrative leave in July.

The plaintiffs from Voice of America - Abramowitz, along with a group of journalists led by former White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara - recently asked Lamberth to hold the government in contempt for not following an April 22 preliminary injunction that ordered it to follow its statutory mandate. (A federal appeals court overturned other parts of Lamberth’s injunction, including a provision that ordered staffers back to work.)

Lamberth has been critical of the government throughout court proceedings. He stopped short of holding Lake in contempt but said she was “verging on contempt” and ordered her deposed in the coming weeks, along with two other USAGM officials.

In turn, Lake has publicly complained about Lamberth. “Of course I’ve got a judge here in Washington, D.C. - I’ve got five cases against me as I try to scale this monster, this beast back and rightsize it. I mean, I’ve got a judge who’s threatening me with contempt of court, throwing me in prison, if I don’t produce more of the propaganda that he wants me to produce,” Lake said on a radio show this month.

Lake is also planning to order a mass reduction-in-force that could see more than 500 agency employees - most of whom have been on paid administrative leave since March - terminated in the coming days.

Abramowitz and Lake did not immediately respond to requests for comment.