Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) filed a lawsuit against Kari Lake in her capacity as advisor to the acting CEO of the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) last week.
The two independent media organizations, contracted by the government, alleged that she wrongly halted their grant funding as part of the Trump administration’s DOGE cuts. Royce Charles Lamberth, a senior judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, heard oral arguments on Monday.
On March 15, Lake sent a letter to terminate the grant agreement for the two organizations because it “no longer effectuates agency priorities.” Since Lake came on board, over 1,000 employees were fired from USAGM, all the staff at its subsidiary Voice of America (VOA) were put on administrative leave, and numerous grant contracts were terminated. Lake was originally hired to lead VOA, but due to the delays getting Trump’s nominees through Senate confirmation hearings, including Brent Bozell who would lead USAGM, she has been appointed an advisor for now.
RFE/RL claimed in the lawsuit, which also named USAGM and its CEO Victor Morales, that USAGM is legally required to provide grants to them. However, USAGM said it was only “eliminat[ing] all non-statutorily required activities and functions.”
An anonymous source familiar with RFE/RL told The Arizona Sun Times that Lamberth appeared to be helping RFE/RL argue their case. The source said Lamberth tried to blame Trump for not going to Congress to dispute the grants to them. However, Trump’s DOGE is trying to cut so many grants that it would be impossible for Trump to go over each one with Congress, so it made more sense for the agencies to deal with that, the source said. The source said he or she believed it was a “predetermined decision” by Lamberth to join the other judges fighting against Trump. The agencies aren’t just a “pass-through bank” for the funds, the source said, forced to take orders from Congress. Congress authorizes appropriations, but it’s up to the agencies to determine how to spend it, since it might be necessary to change spending patterns if it’s wasteful or corrupt.
The source said the employees at RFE/RL act like they are “entitled to taxpayer funds,” whereas Lake and the Trump administration are “representing the unnamed taxpayer.” The source said the waste at the agencies is astronomical, involving “usurping government functions and duplicating or even triplicating government functions.” The agencies are giving money to nonprofits that “are very profitable” that merely duplicate work the agencies are already performing. For example, the Open Technology Fund was duplicated with the Office of Internet Freedom. One of the employees awarded her own nonprofit a $1 million grant and was not disciplined.
Since Trump took office, journalists at VOA have attacked him. “[Trump] repeated the false claim that 21 million people entered the United States illegally during the Biden administration,” said VOA employee Liam Scott earlier this month, whose bio states that he is an award-winning reporter. “He also falsely insinuated that transgender youth do not exist.”
Daniel Robinson, who worked as a journalist for VOA for over 30 years, has written extensively about the waste and partisan bias at that agency. He said the agency merely slowly parrots articles that have already come out in the private sector — mainstream media outlets like the AP and Reuters — and it’s slower than the BBC even though it is from England, a far smaller country.
Lamberth has issued some of the longest sentences to the January 6 defendants and repeatedly ruled against Jacob Chansley, aka the QAnon Shaman. Lamberth was removed from handling a lawsuit against the Bush administration’s Interior Department in 2006 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit due to calling the agency racist. In 2010, he agreed with the Obama administration and overruled a lower judge who had determined that the DOJ needed to notify conservative reporter James Rosen that a search warrant had been issued for his emails and phone records.
The plaintiffs are represented by Covington & Burlington. Last month, President Donald Trump revoked security clearances for attorneys from that firm who provided pro bono services to former Special Counsel Jack Smith in his lawfare against Trump. The firm, which includes former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, has also represented terrorists incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay pro bono, and done pro bono work supporting the District of Columbia’s previous handgun ban.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Kari Lake” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0. Background Photo “Radio Free Europe Building” by Petr Kadlec. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Oh how the piglets squeal when the teat dries up. The federal government needs to stop funding these blatantly leftist news companies. They DO NOT speak for the majority of Americans.