Judge orders Trump administration to explain why not follow orders to restore U.S. voice
The federal judge on Wednesday essentially accused the Trump administration of ignoring his order to resume U.S. operations and clearly explained that its actions on government operations are providing news to other countries.
U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia provided the government with the government until August 13 to explain how to make the VOA work again. Since March, media dating back to World War II have been largely dark.
Lambers said the administration needs to show what it has done for the $260 million Congress that operates for VOA this year.
Kari Lake, a consultant appointed by Trump as a government news agency, said in June that 85% of the U.S. VOA and its overseers in the U.S. media outlets lost their jobs. She called it “depleting overdue efforts from a swollen, irresponsible bureaucracy.”
Lambers said there is a process of funding that was previously allocated – Congress has to vote on it, as has been done recently for NPR and PBS funding. But that hasn’t happened yet, he said.
He scolded the government for requesting “Cagey answers” in previous court orders and omitting key information.
“There is no further explanation and the court will conclude that the defendants are simply trying to exhaust the clock in the fiscal year without the intention of putting the funds that Congress has put into practice into Congress,” Lambers wrote. “The legal term is ‘waste.'”
The White House did not comment immediately.
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David Bauder wrote about the intersection of Associated Press media and entertainment. Follow him and
