The order was hailed by USAGM advisor Kari Lake on Saturday.
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.
In a 2–1 ruling, a majority of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia wrote that a lower court judge lacked the jurisdiction to order the employees to return to work.
Late last month, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth issued an order for the employees to be allowed to return to work and for the restoration of $15 million in grants for Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
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.”
“BIG WIN in our legal cases at USAGM & Voice of America. Huge victory for President Trump and Article II,” Lake wrote in a post on social media platform X after the court order. “Turns out the District Court judge will not be able to manage the agency as he seemed to want to.”
