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A federal judge on Tuesday nullified nearly all actions that the Trump administration took to shutter Voice of America, a federally funded news organization that broadcast to countries with limited press protections, including Iran, China and Russia.
Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered more than 1,000 full-time journalists and support staff at the news group to return to work by March 23 and to resume broadcasting operations. The judge’s decision excludes contracted employees.
Judge Lamberth wrote that Congress passed clear laws funding V.O.A. and directing the administration to maintain news operations “in each significant region of the world” that present “a variety of opinions and voices.” But the Trump administration, Judge Lamberth said, flagrantly disregarded the rules in seeking to shutter the news service and its parent agency.
The latest court ruling voiding the Trump administration’s efforts to shutter V.O.A. dealt another blow to Kari Lake, a Trump ally who served as the de facto head of V.O.A.’s oversight agency, and President Trump, who has called the news group the “voice of radical America.”
Judge Lamberth’s order could also move the fight to keep V.O.A., founded in 1942 to combat Nazi propaganda, as an independent news agency from the federal courts to within the administration. Trump administration officials have sought to influence the editorial decision of federally funded news organizations.
It was not immediately clear whether the administration will appeal the decision. Ms. Lake and her spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
This ruling comes more than a week after Judge Lamberth ruled Ms. Lake’s appointment illegal, effectively voiding all layoffs. But that ruling fell short of ordering the administration to bring back the journalists and resume news programming. Nearly all V.O.A. staff had been on paid leave since March 2025.
If Judge Lamberth’s ruling stands, V.O.A. would soon restart news operations to the level the news group sustained before Mr. Trump moved to close it down.
The network had broadcast in 49 languages to more than 360 million people around the world every week until early 2025, when Mr. Trump signed an executive order mandating that the news group would shrink to its “minimum presence and function required by law.”
V.O.A.’s Persian broadcast resumed in June 2025, when the agency recalled Persian-speaking journalists from leave after U.S. strikes in Iran that targeted its nuclear facilities.
The Persian service expanded to 24-hour coverage after Mr. Trump launched strikes against Iran earlier this month. But V.O.A. maintained what Judge Lamberth called “skeletal operations,” providing “substantially reduced” news services only in five other languages: Chinese, Pashto, Dari, Russian and Korean.
Ms. Lake and the Trump administration argued that their decision to shutter most news services and fire nearly all journalists and staff was lawful, citing a memorandum signed by senior career officials at the news group’s parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
The memo contended that Voice of America needed fewer than 20 employees to fulfill its congressionally mandated duty to serve “a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news” across the globe, a document Ms. Lake repeatedly referred to as her definition of the “statutory minimum” of the agency’s functions.
But Judge Lamberth rejected that assertion. He said the memo did not mention or analyze how such a low level of staffing would permit the agency to comply with the broadcasting standards set by Congress.
In April 2025, the judge ordered the Trump administration to restart news services at a level that could satisfy its legal mandate. But Ms. Lake and other Trump officials have insisted that a diminished service of about an hourlong broadcast in each of a handful of languages had been enough to comply with the judge’s order.
That claim outraged Judge Lamberth, who threatened to hold Ms. Lake in contempt while forcing her and other Trump appointees to provide depositions. On Tuesday, the judge said Ms. Lake “repeatedly thumbed her nose at these statutory requirements” in a “flagrant and nearly yearlong refusal.”
After Judge Lamberth ruled Ms. Lake’s appointment as invalid, Mr. Trump last week chose a State Department official, Sarah B. Rogers, as the chief executive of V.O.A.’s parent agency. The position that Ms. Rogers could hold requires Senate confirmation. Ms. Rogers is known for her staunch defense of the free speech rights of right-wing groups.
The journalists and support staff members at V.O.A. who sued the Trump administration said they want to rebuild the news agency’s reach.
“We are eager to begin repairing the damage Kari Lake has inflicted on our agency,” Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper, three of the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “We hope the American people will continue to support our mission to produce journalism, not propaganda.”
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