A federal judge on Thursday barred Kari Lake, an ally of President Donald Trump whom the president picked to lead Voice of America, from firing agency director Michael Abramowitz.
Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ordered Abramowitz’s reinstatement, saying the director must remain in his role until he can be lawfully removed.
Lake, a senior adviser for the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America, put VOA’s entire workforce on administrative leave and pulled funding from every other US-backed broadcaster earlier this year, shortly after Trump signed an executive order to gut the agency.
Abramowitz can only be removed by a majority vote of the VOA’s advisory board, according to Lamberth’s decision. But there’s a catch: The Trump administration fired the broadcaster’s entire board earlier this year.
“To the extent the Board’s current lack of quorum institutes a practical barrier to removing Abramowitz, the Broadcast Act gives the President a straightforward remedy: replacing the removed members,” Lamberth, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his opinion following the ruling.
Abramowitz was fired earlier this month after he refused to take a demotion to serve as the chief management officer in Greenville, North Carolina. The VOA director called the reassignment “illegal” in a letter, insisting he could only be removed from his role with the board’s approval.
The move comes as a major blow to Lake, who has sought to exert control over the VOA since being given oversight of the agency by Trump in February. After Lake attempted to shut the VOA down in March, Abramowitz sued the Trump administration. The lawsuit, one of several filed by media outlets housed or funded under USAGM, asked the court to determine whether the government’s gutting of the broadcaster was unlawful.
Lamberth granted the VOA a preliminary injunction in April, which allowed staffers to return to work. But, in June, the VOA was rocked by widespread layoffs that axed most of the broadcaster’s staff.
During a June hearing, Lamberth asked Lake why the government hadn’t informed him of the sweeping layoffs. He also asked Lake to provide the court with more information on how the government was complying with his order. When a government lawyer told Lamberth that USAGM had complied with his April order “in good faith,” Lamberth replied, “I don’t think so.”
In mid-August, VOA plaintiffs asked Lamberth to hold Lake in contempt for failing to comply with the preliminary injunction. On Friday, Lamberth ordered Lake and two aides to testify under oath by September 15, saying she was “verging on contempt of court” after she failed to provide information about her intentions for the VOA.
Lake was tapped by Trump to lead VOA in December. Given that federal law prohibits the president from naming the agency’s director, Trump instead appointed Lake as “a senior adviser,” giving her oversight over the agency. Lake, however, claims to have taken on the role of deputy chief executive in July before donning the title of “acting chief executive” later that month after Victor Morales, who had been serving as USAGM’s acting CEO, was placed on indefinite leave.
Lake and attorneys for Abramowitz did not responded to CNN’s requests for comment.
This story has been updated with additional content.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
