Federal judge orders Trump administration to rehire all Voice of America and Radio Free Asia staff

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore Voice of America, saying the effort to gut the 80-year-old government-funded news service likely violated the law and Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said the administration’s rush to dismantle the VOA and related news organizations funded by the U.S. Agency for Global Media resulted in the suspension of hundreds of journalists and employees. It put some overseas correspondents at risk of being deported to their home countries, the judge noted. And Lamberth said the silencing of VOA — for the first time in 80 years — also deprived hundreds of millions of listeners of a reliable source of news in parts of the world that lack a free press.

Lamberth said the administration offered virtually no justification for the draconian cuts, suggesting it was working to comply with President Donald Trump’s March 14 executive order requiring a significant scaling back of the agency. Yet the cuts were so bone-deep, Lamberth said, that they likely violated even Trump’s command that the programs continue to operate at legally required minimum levels of service.

“They took immediate and drastic action to slash USAGM, without considering its statutorily or constitutionally required functions as required by the plain language of the [executive order], and without regard to the harm inflicted on employees, contractors, journalists, and media consumers around the world,” Lamberth said. “It is hard to fathom a more straightforward display of arbitrary and capricious actions than the Defendants’ actions here.”

The judge, a Reagan appointee, is ordering the Trump administration to immediately restore all employees and contractors to their news programs and unfreeze funding streams for other affiliated networks like Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. He also ordered officials to restore VOA programming to fulfill the legal mandate that it “serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.”

A spokesperson for USAGM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The ruling is the latest legal blow to the administration’s effort to dramatically remake the federal bureaucracy, and one aimed squarely at one of the U.S. government’s most visible and widely known properties around the world. Other judges have grappled with lawsuits aimed at dismantling government agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and U.S. Agency for International Development, raising alarms that the administration appeared to be attempting to permanently obliterate them before courts could act.

Lamberth nodded to that concern, noting that had courts not stepped in multiple times, several of USAGM’s prominent news services might already be gone. He noted that as of now, the only operational news service under USAGM is a 33-person unit in the Office of Cuba Broadcasting.

Trump and his allies have decried Voice of America as a bastion of “far-left” ideology and suggested it doesn’t serve U.S. government interests.

Lamberth indicated in his ruling that the sweeping effort to break VOA appeared to be based in part on those views, despite claims that the administration was not targeting First Amendment-protected speech.

Lamberth also indicated that the effort was likely a direct breach of the Constitution, saying the administration’s “unwillingness to expend funds in accordance with the congressional appropriations laws is a direct affront to the power of the legislative branch.”

“VOA has been operating under statutory mandate and with steady congressional appropriations for over eighty years, and in so doing, has cultivated an audience of 425 million listeners who rely on VOA’s output — particularly in areas of the world where a free press is otherwise unavailable,” Lamberth wrote. “The Networks have contributed to U.S. international broadcasting by almost exclusively relying on their yearly congressional appropriations, which have been uninterrupted for decades before March 15, 2025. There is no sign that the defendants considered these longstanding reliance interests before taking the sweeping actions at issue here.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/22/voice-of-america-donald-trump-00303983

Marco Rubio to close 132 agency offices inside State Department; 604 agencies to remain open

The Trump administration has begun an aggressive shake-up at the State Department that will close 132 agency offices, including those launched to further human rights, advance democracy overseas, counter extremism, and prevent war crimes.

The plans to reorganize the leading foreign policy agency in the United States are outlined in internal documents obtained by The Free Press. They show how the State Department will eliminate or restructure hundreds of offices in Washington, D.C.—a revelation that comes after reports in recent weeks of a rumored overhaul at the agency. The State Department is bringing its number of offices down from 734 to 602, a 17 percent reduction.

Separately, under secretaries at the State Department are also being instructed within 30 days to present plans to reduce their U.S. personnel in individual departments by 15 percent, according to a senior State Department official. These include six top offices employing thousands of people. The reorganization comes as the Trump administration seeks to drastically reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

Earlier this morning, roughly a dozen top officials at the State Department were briefed on the plans by leadership at the agency, according to a second senior State Department official. The State Department also sent a brief letter to Congress on Tuesday informing lawmakers that there will be changes to the department, although it is expected to send a more detailed congressional notice in the near future that will outline them. Officials say it is the biggest shake-up at the State Department “in decades.”

“In its current form, the Department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great power competition,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement to The Free Press. “That is why today I am announcing a comprehensive reorganization plan that will bring the Department into the twenty-first century.”

Rubio is working alongside Elon Musk’s DOGE on the reorganization, according to one U.S. official familiar with the matter, who said Rubio has viewed the prospect of broad reform to the State Department as a priority since his time in the Senate.

Mike Pompeo, secretary of state during the first Trump administration, has also long believed a reorganization at the State Department is needed to streamline work. “The State Department is desperately in need of significant reorganization, and there’s much efficiency that can be gained there,” Pompeo told The Free Press.

Previous speculation, including a report published Sunday in The New York Times, had focused on the possible closure of overseas offices, including the elimination of almost all its Africa operations.

But the planning documents seen by The Free Press, several of which are marked “SBU” for Sensitive But Unclassified, make no mention of the rumored changes covered by the Times.

Rubio said the Times story amounted to “fake news.” And two senior State Department officials involved in the reorganization efforts said its contents bore no resemblance to the plan Rubio is now undertaking. The Free Press also obtained internal documents showing the proposed new organizational chart for the State Department.

According to the planning documents, the State Department will eliminate 132 of its offices along with 700 positions within them. These offices are wings of the agency in Washington, D.C., that focus on a variety of foreign policy issues and are viewed by the Trump administration as no longer necessary.

The 700 positions are for civil service and foreign service employees, rather than political appointees. The elimination of the roles is in addition to the State Department’s ask for under secretaries to reduce their personnel by 15 percent.

The State Department is also transferring 137 offices to other parts of the agency to consolidate programs.

“This approach will empower the Department from the ground up, from the bureaus to the embassies,” Rubio said. “Region-specific functions will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist.”

The Trump administration’s move will almost certainly face staunch criticism from Democrats in Congress, who have expressed concerns about national security and American diplomacy amidst reports of President Donald Trump potentially shrinking the agency.

The programs that the State Department is cutting are among those that do not require approval from Congress, the second senior State Department official stressed. Top offices at the agency will have 30 days to devise plans for how they will implement the changes, the second official said.

One notable part of the restructuring will involve an office called the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, also known as the agency’s “J programs.” It “leads global diplomatic efforts to advance universal human rights, democratic renewal, and human-centered security,” according to its website.

The J office, the documents show, is being overhauled and renamed as the Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance and Human Rights. There, officials plan to abolish its Office of Global Criminal Justice, which was formed in 1997 to advise on U.S. policy related to genocide, war crimes, and other grave human rights violations.

In the past, the Office of Global Criminal Justice has worked with the Department of Justice on investigating atrocities committed in Syria, and has aided Balkan countries in setting up war crime tribunals, according to a former State Department official. This March, the office met with a group of Syrians to discuss human rights issues.

Some functions of that criminal justice office will be absorbed by the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, according to the documents.

Another office on the chopping block is the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, or CSO. It received $336 million between 2016 and 2023, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, an independent agency examining how federal funds are spent.

The CSO was established in 2011 to help anticipate, prevent, and respond to conflicts that may threaten U.S. national security, according to a press release upon its launch. The office says on its website that its programs have included generating data analytics to document war crimes by Russia-aligned forces in Ukraine and issuing policy recommendations to target radical armed forces in countries like Myanmar, Iraq, and Libya.

Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported on an internal memo that said the White House’s budget office was considering asking Congress to close the CSO as part of a separate proposal. The proposal would reduce the agency’s budget by $27 billion.

Rachel Cauley, a spokeswoman for the White House budget office, told The Free Press that no final funding decisions have been made.

“Nobody is really sure what they do,” the second senior State Department official said of the CSO. “When I ask them, they seem to not really be sure what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s an office that was created several years ago to look at Afghanistan [issues] and to avoid conflict areas. But we already have other offices within the department that do that.”

Brett Bruen, a former State Department official during the Obama administration, raised concerns last week that the possible closure of the CSO and other programs was the “demolishing of our international influence instruments.”

The State Department also has plans to eliminate “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) activities at the Bureau of Counterterrorism, the documents say. CVE refers to “actions to counter efforts by violent extremists to radicalize, recruit, and mobilize followers to violence and to address specific factors that facilitate violent extremist recruitment and radicalization to violence,” the State Department said in a 2016 report.

The State Department increased spending on CVE in 2015, at the height of ISIS’s rise to power in the Middle East, as part of a push to work with international allies on thwarting the spread of extremism, according to a 2019 State Department audit. Officials in the Trump administration are of the mind that the CVE programs at that bureau duplicate others in the agency, including programs at a bureau focused on international narcotics.

One significant way the Trump administration is consolidating programs is by targeting the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which was launched in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to administer foreign aid.

Since Trump took office, he has moved to slash most of USAID’s contracts over concerns that too much overseas spending was either wasted or not in alignment with U.S. interests. Congressional Democrats have said Trump’s attack on USAID is illegal.

The second senior State Department official told The Free Press that foreign assistance functions formerly run by USAID will now be taken on by regional State Department bureaus or folded into other existing offices. For example, USAID’s disaster assistance functions will be moved to the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and its health programs to the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy, the official said.

“On July 1, USAID ceases to exist,” that official added. The State Department has said it will complete its USAID reorganization by that date, which is expected to draw legal challenges since Congress established USAID as an independent agency.

The broader restructuring at the State Department will also see the elimination of a nuclear nonproliferation envoy role at a bureau working to prevent weapons of mass destruction.

According to the internal documents, the State Department is planning to create an office called the Bureau of Emerging Threats. It will focus on cyber threats to the U.S., the second senior State Department official said.

“We’re trying to streamline the organization, to centralize functions that should be centralized, and to focus on the big things that support our America First diplomacy out in the field,” the official added.

https://www.thefp.com/p/trump-state-shake-up-rubio

Julie Kelly: Supreme Court gets involved in very dirty case

WHOO BOY: In an order filed last night, Judge James Hendrixthe judge in Texas presiding over latest Alien Enemies Act case which prompted unprecedented intervention by SCOTUSaccused ACLU atty of violating federal code of conduct rules by calling his chambers AFTER Hendrix denied the 1st emergency temp restraining order on April 17.

This was noted on the docket after Hendrix filed his order. Now it makes me wonder if Lee Gelernt did not do exactly the same thing with Judge Jeb Boasberg–which could explain Boasberg's quick action on March 15.

Here is the voicemail from Gelernt.

What are the chances he left the same message with Boasberg in the wee hours of March 15? In fact (and I will look at transcript), I believe Boasberg admitted to being "in communication" with ACLU prior to issuing any order or setting hearings.

Hendrix denied the emergency motion bc Trump adm said the 2 anonymous Venezuelan illegals cited in the lawsuit would not be removed. Butjust like in the Boasberg casethat was not enough.

ACLU was demanding the case be converted into a class action suit covering ANYONE in the jurisdiction that might be subject to the Alien Enemies Act–which is what Boasberg did before his "return the planes" stunt.

ACLU was hoping for same outcome here. Hendrix was not playing their game. Even so, he was advancing the suit on Good Friday–but that wasn't good enough for ACLU, which is used to running roughshod over the courts.

They immediately appealed, taking the matter out of Hendrix's hands. Then they cried to SCOTUS, who bailed ACLU (and the illegals) out.

SCOTUS just got involved in what looks like a very dirty case from the start. Good to see at least one judge stand up for himself and for the process.

Judge Hendrix had to admonish ACLU twice in one day about not following the rules.

Watch today–the judge sadly will become villain number one in the media. Just like Aileen Cannon.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1914665910255652918.html

Keir Starmer U-turns to say trans women are not women after Supreme Court ruling

Keir Starmer no longer believes trans women are women in the wake of last week’s landmark Supreme Court ruling.

The prime minister has previously said that “trans women are women”, but asked to repeat that statement on Tuesday he pointed to the judgment, which ruled the term woman referred to biological sex, saying it had “answered that question”.

Downing Street later confirmed the U-turn. Asked if the PM still believed that a transgender woman was a woman, his official spokesman said: “No, the Supreme Court judgment has made clear that when looking at the Equality Act, a woman is a biological woman. That is set out clearly by the court judgment.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused Sir Keir of peddling a “shameless work of fiction” over his U-turn.

She added: "Labour now says that they know what a woman is and that transgender people should use services and facilities designated to their biological sex. They've never said this before. This is a U-turn but we welcome it."

His comments came just hours after the equalities minister Bridget Phillipson said trans women should use male toilets, adding that “services should be accessed on the basis of biological sex”.

Later she praised JK Rowling after she was asked in the Commons about the Harry Potter author, a long-time campaigner on this issue.

She said she paid “tribute to all of those women”, who included Ms Rowling and the swimmer Sharron Davies.

In last week’s long-awaited judgment, the UK’s highest court confirmed the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.

Asked about the issue on Tuesday, Sir Keir said that a woman was an “adult female”. And, in his first public comments since the justices’ decision on 16 April, the Labour leader said he was “really pleased” with the clarity offered by the court’s ruling.

He said the judgment was a “welcome step forward” adding: “It’s real clarity in an area where we did need clarity, I’m pleased it’s come about. We need to move and make sure that we now ensure that all guidance is in the right place according to that judgment.”

In March 2022, before he entered No 10, Sir Keir told The Times that “a woman is a female adult, and in addition to that trans women are women, and that is not just my view, that is actually the law”.

A year later he appeared to change his position, stating that 99.9 per cent of women “haven’t got a penis”.

In recent days former Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption has warned that organisations are potentially misinterpreting the landmark ruling, arguing it did not create an obligation to provide single-sex spaces.

Instead, Lord Sumption argued that while many have taken the ruling to mean that service providers are obliged to provide single-sex spaces based on biological sex, the ruling meant that excluding transgender people from single-sex spaces was allowed, and not a breach of the 2010 Equality Act.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/starmer-trans-women-supreme-court-b2737315.html

Top Producer of ‘60 Minutes’ Quits

In an extraordinary declaration, Mr. Owens — only the third person to run the program in its 57-year history — told his staff in a memo that “over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”

“So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward,” he wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The New York Times.

“60 Minutes” has faced mounting pressure in recent months from both President Trump, who sued CBS for $10 billion and has accused the program of “unlawful and illegal behavior,” and its own corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.

Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, is eager to secure the Trump administration’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to Skydance, a company run by the son of the tech billionaire Larry Ellison. She has expressed a desire to settle Mr. Trump’s case, which stems from what the president has called a deceptively edited interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on “60 Minutes.”

Legal experts have dismissed that suit as baseless and far-fetched, and Mr. Owens said in February that he would not apologize as part of any prospective settlement. Many journalists at CBS News — the former home of Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace — believe that a settlement would amount to a capitulation to Mr. Trump over what they consider standard-issue gripes about editorial judgment.

In his memo on Tuesday, Mr. Owens pledged that “‘60 Minutes’ will continue to cover the new administration, as we will report on future administrations.” He added: “The show is too important to the country. It has to continue, just not with me as the executive producer.”

Mr. Owens had also led a recent overhaul of “CBS Evening News,” the news division’s flagship weeknight show. He first worked at CBS as a summer intern in 1988, and was named the executive producer of “60 Minutes” in 2019.

Mr. Trump has often singled out “60 Minutes” for scorn. In 2020, he cut short an interview with Lesley Stahl after he became displeased with her questions. He declined to be interviewed by the program during last year’s presidential campaign.

On April 13, apparently irked by that evening’s edition of the show, Mr. Trump accused “60 Minutes” of “fraudulent, beyond recognition, reporting” in a social media post and urged his government regulators to strip CBS of its broadcast license. “CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this,” Mr. Trump wrote.

Executives at Paramount and at Skydance took notice of the president’s angry comments, according to three people familiar with internal discussions. Settlement talks between Paramount and Mr. Trump are ongoing, and the two sides have chosen a mediator to help resolve the case.

In recent months, “60 Minutes” has also faced scrutiny from Ms. Redstone herself, who complained to CBS executives about a story focused on the Biden administration’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. One day after that segment aired, a veteran CBS producer, Susan Zirinsky, was appointed to a new role overseeing the news division’s journalistic standards.

Wendy McMahon, the president of CBS News and Stations, wrote in a separate note on Tuesday that she remained “committed to ‘60 Minutes’ and to ensuring that the mission and the work remain our priority.”

She also praised Mr. Owens. “Standing behind what he stood for was an easy decision for me, and I never took for granted that he did the same for me,” she wrote.

https://archive.is/CzSgq

Massive turnout for Charlie Kirk @ Texas A&M

Turning Point USA

@TPUSA

A full house and incredible energy tonight at Texas A&M for the American Comeback Tour with @charliekirk11

https://x.com/TPUSA/status/1914836961619018119

Michigan congresswoman, Haley Stevens, smokes meth before speaking on Senate floor

Citizen Free Press

@CitizenFreePres

Michigan congresswoman Haley Stevens is either off her meds or needs a stronger dose. Check out this bit of Haley insanity.

And by the way, she announced today she is running for U.S. Senate.

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1914886371170295968