Kooky KARI LAKE has spoken to St. Johns County Republicans, more here, and once spoke in front of a Confederate flag.. From The New York Times:
Firing of Voice of America Chief Was Illegal, Appeals Court Rules
The unanimous ruling upheld a lower-court decision and was the latest setback to the Trump administration, which has sought to shutter the independent news group.
Minho Kim has covered the Trump administration’s attempts at dismantling federally funded news groups since March 2025.
A federal appeals court panel ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration illegally fired the head of Voice of America, a federally funded news group that broadcasts news to countries with limited press freedom.
The unanimous decision from the three-judge panel upheld a lower-court ruling and was the latest setback to the Trump administration, which has sought to close the independent news group, calling it the “voice of radical America” and accusing it of producing politically biased news content.
In March, a federal judge nullified the firing of more than 1,000 journalists at the group and voided the appointment of an ally of President Trump as an interim chief of the news group’s parent agency.
The ruling on Tuesday, by judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, reaffirmed that the administration needed approval from a bipartisan board to remove the head of Voice of America, Michael Abramowitz. The ruling could pave the way for Mr. Abramowitz, who has been on leave since March 2025 and was fired in August 2025, to return to the role.
ADVERTISEMENT
Congress passed a law in 2020 requiring approval from that board, the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, to hire and fire the heads of federally funded news groups including V.O.A., after Trump officials terminated network heads during the president’s first term.
A few days after his second inauguration, Mr. Trump fired six of the seven board members, leaving only Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who automatically serves because he leads the State Department. At least four members, excluding Mr. Rubio, are required for the board to vote. The six members besides Mr. Rubio must be confirmed by the Senate, and none has been replaced.
The government has argued in Mr. Trump’s second term that a requirement limiting the president’s personnel authority is unconstitutional. It has also claimed that courts lacked jurisdiction, as Congress had established an agency, the Merit Systems Protection Board, to handle federal employment disputes. (Mr. Trump has also moved to fire members of that board.)
But judges rejected those arguments.
Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard, an Obama appointee on the appeals court, wrote on Tuesday that the law Congress passed in 2020 is “a durable barrier against any breach of the firewall protecting the journalistic integrity of Voice of America and the affiliate networks.” She added that the government’s claim was incongruous with “common sense.”
Channeling Mr. Abramowitz’s claim through the Merit Systems Protection Board “would effectively nullify Congress’s decision to make the broadcasting board the guardian of the independence of the networks’ leadership,” she added.
Mr. Abramowitz expressed gratitude for the court’s decision and signaled that he wished to return to the job. He has been on paid leave since March 2025, along with hundreds of journalists.
“There is no longer any reason for the government to prevent me from doing the job for which I was legally installed on a bipartisan basis more than two years ago,” Mr. Abramowitz said in a statement.
Voice of America once broadcast in 49 languages to 360 million people around the world every week. Now it provides a much diminished service in fewer than 10 languages including Mandarin, Korean, Persian and two languages spoken in Afghanistan: Dari and Pashto.
The network has gradually restored its coverage since the lower-court ruling in March. Sarah B. Rogers, Mr. Trump’s new appointee to V.O.A.’s parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, has signaled that she would restore much of the coverage by the news group, which was founded in 1942 to combat Nazi propaganda.
Mr. Abramowitz urged Ms. Rogers to accelerate the restoration of the group’s coverage.
“There is no need for continued litigation,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment