“The second Trump administration has taken a chainsaw to the agency as a whole in an attempt to shutter it completely,” the lawsuit alleges.
A lawsuit filed Friday accuses the Trump administration of violating federal law by dismantling the Voice of America, a media outlet that shares news about the United States with people around the world.
According to The Associated Press, the complaint was filed on behalf of multiple plaintiffs, including a group of Voice of America journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and several labor unions.
“In many parts of the world, a crucial source of objective news is gone, and only censored state-sponsored news media is left to fill the void,” the lawsuit alleges.
Kari Lake, the Trump administration’s special advisor for the United States Agency for Global Meida, has repeatedly said that the Voice of America is tantamount to a “giant rot” that must be razed before being rebuilt. Before accepting her current position, Lake was best known for refusing to accept the results of the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, which she lost by nearly 20,000 votes.
In an interview with Newsmax earlier this week, Lake said that rebuilding the Voice of America is “like having a rotten fish and trying to find a portion that you can eat.”
The Voice of America, Lake clarified in a later X post, is a “giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer—a national security risk for the nation—and irretrievably broken.”
“While there are bright spots within the agency with personnel who are talented and dedicated public servants, this is the exception rather than the rule,” Lake wrote.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs, in contrast, effectively accused Lake of being delusional.
“Tragically, Lake lives in the MAGA fantasy world, but she makes decisions that have real-world consequences for hundreds of journalists,” said David Seide, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
“We’ve assembled a coalition of journalists, unions, and advocacy groups to stop and reverse the DOGE machine,” Seide said. National Public Radio notes that some of the lawsuit’s other supporters include unions representing federal employees, reporters, and foreign policy staffers.
Similarly, Reporters Without Borders executive director Clayton Weimers said that his organization felt compelled to take action—both to protect the Voice of America, and to prevent the Trump administration from further attempting to restrict journalism and the freedom of the press.
“The second Trump administration has taken a chainsaw to the agency as a whole in an attempt to shutter it completely,” the lawsuit alleges.
Although Trump, Lake, and many other conservatives share a belief that Voice of America is politically biased, the media outlet has enjoyed broad bipartisan support for more than a half-century.
Sources
A federal lawsuit says the Trump administration has unlawfully shuttered the Voice of America
Voice of America staff sue Trump administration for shutting down network
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