Analysis of ruling in Widakuswara v. Lake (2025) United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Case No. 1:25-cv-1015-RCL
By John R. Vile
On March 14, 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order that sought to eliminate or greatly reduce seven government agencies. Among them was the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees five federally funded broadcast networks including Voice of America.
The executive order, entitled “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” instructed that “the non-statutory components and functions” of the agencies “be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
What is the U.S. Agency for Global Media?
The U.S. Agency for Global Media was established as an independent agency in 1999 by Congress to “inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.” However, the government-funded broadcasting networks it oversees date back to 1942. The entities it oversees are:
- Voice of America, which had been broadcasting since World War II, and was codified into law in 1976 as “a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news [that is] accurate, objective, and comprehensive”;
- the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB); and
- three independent broadcasting networks, namely, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Network; and
- the Open Technology Fund, which develops and distributes technologies to counter efforts by repressive regimes and closed societies.
The Voice of America and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting are located within the federal government whereas the others are private nonprofit organizations that receive funding through government grants.
Kari Lake shutters Voice of America, other government broadcasts
On March 15, the day after Trump signed the executive order, Congress adopted a continuing resolution providing funding for the U.S. Agency for Global Media and associated networks through Sept. 30, 2025.
Also on March, 15, Kari Lake, who was appointed by Trump to be senior advisor for the agency, shuttered the agencies, placing most of the employees on paid administrative leave until further notice. She announced the actions in a press release posted on the agency’s website.
This put 1,042 of 1,147 of the agency’s full-time employees, including many journalists, on administrative leave and immediately terminated grant agreements with the other networks.
President Trump indicated that his executive order “will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.”
Lake’s press release stated: “This agency is not salvageable. From top-to-bottom this agency is a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer—a national security risk for this nation—and irretrievably broken.” She said that spies and terrorist sympathizers were “infiltrating the agency” and that “$100s-of-millions (is) being spent on fake news companies.” She also claimed that “radical Leftist advocacy organizations” had worked with “self-interested insiders” in “Trump-Proofing” the agency from his political leadership.
Potential violations of First Amendment, separation of powers
Representatives of the Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting networks, including the Voice of America White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara, sought a preliminary injunction against Lake.
On March 28, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York issued a temporary restraining order. The case was then transferred to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
On April 22, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth for the D.C. District issued a preliminary injunction.
The plaintiffs had challenged Lake’s actions on multiple grounds. They include the First Amendment protections for speech and press, separation of powers, the provision in Article II, Section 3, mandating the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (the Take Care Clause), and a number of congressional statutes including the Administrative Procedure Act , the International Broadcasting Act, and various congressional appropriations laws.
Court has jurisdiction to review withholding of Congress funding
Much of the case focused on whether the plaintiffs had standing and on whether they had met the high hurdle that was required for courts to issue a preliminary injunction. Believing that the plaintiffs had a high probability of ultimate success, Judge Lamberth decided in their favor on both issues.
He further decided that the court had jurisdiction with respect to issues involving the withholding of congressional funding and with respect to personnel actions. Later in the opinion, he also observed that many of the plaintiffs had established that the governmental action was likely to lead to “irreparable harm.”
Judge: Administration failed to analyze statutory requirements
Much of the judge’s decision rested on the Administrative Procedures Act, which gave courts power to set aside agency actions that were “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” This involved an examination f the relevant data to ascertain whether it provided “a satisfactory explanation for its [the government’s] action including a rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.”
The judge concluded that the agency had not undertaken an analysis “to determine which aspects of (the Agency for Global Media) are statutorily required and which are not.” He observed that “the Networks received the termination letters on the exact same day that President Trump signed the Third Continuing Resolution appropriating line-item funds to the Networks through the end of the fiscal year.” He further observed that members of the agencies who were furloughed, including some of whom might be deported back to home countries that did not respect the rights of freedom of speech and press, had a “reliance interest” in receiving funds that Congress had appropriated.
Judge dubious that actions weren't 'viewpoint discrimination'
The Trump Administration had argued that its actions did not violate First Amendment freedoms of speech and press because, since all the broadcasts had been canceled, the actions did not constitute viewpoint discrimination.
"For one, the Court finds this argument troubling," the judge wrote in a footnote "— it cannot be the case that by shutting down all content at an agency, which current leadership has deemed 'radical' and 'so far to the left,' ... that the defendants have avoided any First Amendment transgressions. But moreover, even if the defendants were not motivated by viewpoint (which this Court finds dubious... their stance acknowledges that their actions have effectively shut down the agency wholesale, and they have not offered any 'reasoned analysis' for doing so."
Congress has power of purse; Trump can't dismantle everything
The court further observed that congressional appropriation laws sometimes allowed a president to spend less than a designated amount but that, absent congressional approval, he could only cut up to 5%.
Failing to spend such appropriations violated the Take Care Clause and the congressional exercise of the power of the purse. The judge also pointed to a provision of the Administrative Procedures Act that allowed for a reviewing court to issue an injunction against an agency that failed “to take a discrete agency action that it is required to take.”
Foreign adversaries could fill void with anti-American propaganda
“This is not just about our jobs and journalistic freedom—it’s for our own national security. Because every day that (Voice of America) is not broadcasting, is a day we cede the global information space and allow adversaries to fill it with disinformation and anti-American propaganda,” Widakuswara said. (Feng 2025).
To date, the Trump Administration has faced a number of judicial setbacks with regard to its treatment of the media. It has also engaged in apparent attempts to evade judicial actions. The decision in this case suggests that the key to resolving such conflicts might well rest in congressional willingness to assert its own powers, especially with respect to federal funding. In the meantime, it seems clear that a president does not have carte blanche to usurp the congressional power of the purse or decide which media have the right to exist and which do not.
John R. Vile is a political science professor and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University.
See also these articles in the First Amendment Encyclopedia:
Executive Orders and the First Amendment
Presidents and the First Amendment: Power, accountability and the rights that keep us free