Widakuswara v. Lake

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

PATSY WIDAKUSWARA, et al.,

Plaintiffs, Case No. 1:25-cv-1015-RCL v. Case No. 1:25-cv-0887-RCL KARI LAKE, in her official capacity as Senior Advisor to the Acting CEO of the United States Agency for Global Media, et al.,

Defendants.

MICHAEL ABRAMOWITZ, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

KARI LAKE, in her official capacity as Senior Advisor to the Acting CEO of the United States Agency for Global Media, et al.,

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE

Before the Court is a Motion [ECF No. 112] for an Order to Show Cause filed in

Widakuswara v. Lake, No. 25-cv-1015, and a similar pending Motion [ECF No. 37] for an Order

to Show Cause filed in Abramowitz v. Lake, No. 25-cv-887. Broadly, the Motions ask this Court

to order the defendants to provide a plan for how they intend to comply with Part III of this Court’s

preliminary injunction, which requires the defendants to “restore [Voice of America (“VOA”)]

programming such that USAGM fulfills its statutory mandate that VOA ‘serve as a consistently

1 reliable and authoritative source of news,’ 22 U.S.C. § 6202(c).” Widakuswara v. Lake, --- F.

Supp. 3d. ---, 2025 WL 1166400, at * 18 (D.D.C. Apr. 22, 2025).

On June 23, 2025, the Court held a hearing on the Motions, during which the Court

expressed its dissatisfaction with the defendants’ lack of concrete evidence regarding VOA’s

current operations or future plans. Tr. of June 23 Hr’g, 17:19–18:10, 20:6–12, 32:6–16, ECF No.

51. At the conclusion of the hearing, the Court ordered the defendants to file a supplemental

memorandum “with additional information regarding USAGM’s recent activities, including any

relevant information about USAGM funding decisions, personnel updates, and submissions to

Congress.” Order for Suppl. Mem., Widakuswara ECF No. 121; Abramowitz ECF No. 50. On

June 27, the defendants filed this supplemental memorandum. Resp. to Order of the Court (“First

Suppl. Mem.”), Widakuswara ECF No. 123, Abramowitz ECF No. 54. Both sets of plaintiffs filed

a reply on July 2, highlighting gaps in the defendants’ memorandum. See Pls.’ Surreply at 3,

Widakuswara ECF No. 124 (“the facts [the defendants] assert in support of their purported

compliance with the injunction are often vague or even inaccurate”); Pls.’ Resp. at 1–2,

Abramowitz ECF No. 56 (stating that the memorandum “offer[s] little new information”). The

Court agreed with the plaintiffs, concluding that the defendants’ memorandum failed to deliver the

necessary information for the Court to evaluate compliance with the preliminary injunction. So,

on July 8, the Court ordered the defendants to file a second supplemental memorandum to give the

Court a “clear picture of what VOA is doing, what the defendants’ plan is for VOA moving

forward, or how the defendants made any of these decisions.” Order for Second Suppl. Mem. at

5, Widakuswara ECF No. 126, Abramowitz ECF No. 56.

On July 18, the defendants filed their second supplemental memorandum. Resp. to Order

of the Court (“Second Suppl. Mem.”), Widakuswara ECF No. 129, Abramowitz ECF No. 57. The

2 plaintiffs filed their respective replies on July 25, 2025. Pls.’ Surreply, Widakuswara ECF No.

129; Pls.’ Resp., Abramowitz ECF No. 61. Upon review of this record, the Court concludes that

yet again, the defendants’ filing suffers from many of the same deficiencies as their prior

submissions. For the reasons below, the Court will GRANT the plaintiffs’ Motions for an Order

to Show Cause, and accordingly, the defendants are ORDERED to produce a plan for how they

intend to comply with Part III of the Court’s preliminary injunction.

I. The defendants have consistently refused to give the Court the full story regarding personnel actions.

In the Court’s July 8 Order for a second supplemental memorandum, the Court pointed out

that, because of the defendants’ “noncommittal” representations regarding VOA staffing levels,

the Court was unable to assess the defendants’ compliance with the preliminary injunction. Order

for Second Suppl. Mem. at 3. As a specific example, the Court highlighted the problem with the

defendants’ prior representation about VOA’s ramped-up Persian news personnel capacity: that

the agency plans to institute a reduction-in-force (RIF) that would fire the very VOA employees

that they’re citing as a measure of compliance with this Court’s preliminary injunction. Id. at 2–

3. Broadly, the Court then stated that “[t]he defendants need to provide information on staffing

that gives a realistic picture of how VOA will be operating moving forward.” Id.

But even with this direct command to provide complete information on VOA’s future

operational capacity and staffing levels, the defendants continue to provide cagey answers and

omit key information. The second supplemental memorandum states that VOA has seventy-two

full-time employees “at present,” but that “the number is subject to change as the Agency manages

its operations.” Second Suppl. Mem. Attach. 1, Decl. of Kari Lake, ECF No. 127-1 ¶ 4. The

defendants do not explain how, when, or why these staffing numbers may change. Glaringly, the

memorandum omits any reference to the planned RIF of the 600-plus VOA employees who have

3 been on administrative leave for four months and counting.1 And perhaps more shockingly, on

July 8—the day this Court ordered a second round of supplemental briefing, and a full ten days

before the defendants filed the second supplemental memorandum—the defendants informed

Plaintiff Michael Abramowitz that he would be removed from his position as Director of VOA.

See Pls.’ Resp. at 2 n.1, Abramowitz ECF No. 61. However, the defendants made no mention of

this monumental personnel decision in their filings to this Court.

VOA’s staffing levels are inextricably enmeshed with its operational capacity and, in turn,

its ability to carry out its statutory mandate, because VOA cannot operate without employees. As

this Court has stated before, “[p]ersonnel decisions are within the agency’s purview,” Order for

Second Suppl. Mem. at 3, but “that discretion is neither boundless nor shielded from judicial

review and remediation,” id. (quoting Clerk’s Order No. 2117869 Regarding Denial of Rehearing

En Banc, No. 25-5144 (D.C. Cir. May 28, 2025) (Statement of Pillard, J.)). And without all of the

relevant information regarding VOA’s employment actions, the Court cannot evaluate the

defendants’ compliance with Part III of the preliminary injunction.

II. The defendants have failed to adequately explain how they are spending the $260 million that Congress appropriated to VOA for Fiscal Year 2025.

Congress appropriated $260 million to VOA based on representations USAGM made in

support of its budget in its Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Budget Justification, including how many hours

it intended to broadcast to 100 countries in forty-eight languages.2 In the Court’s Order for a

second supplemental memorandum, the Court specifically deemed the defendants’ filings

1 Mastrangelo, D. “Hundreds Laid Off at Voice of America.” The Hill (published June 20, 2025), https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5361098-trump-laid-off-voice-of-america/ (reporting the announcement of termination notices to 639 VOA employees); Johansen, B. “Embattled Voice of America employees face termination ‘whiplash.’” POLITICO (published June 20, 2025), https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/28/voice-of-america- termination-00431342 (discussing VOA RIF to be completed in September). 2 See USAGM, FY 2025 Congressional Budget Justification, available at https://www.usagm.gov/wp- content/uploads/2024/03/USAGMBudget_FY25_CBJ_03-08-24-1.pdf.

4 “deficien[t]” for failing to make any reference to the 2025 Fiscal Year Budget Justification or give

any explanation for the decision to “abandon” it. Order for Second Suppl. Mem. at 4. The

defendants responded with a “breakdown of VOA’s fiscal year spending to date,” with seven bullet

points of various operational buckets with corresponding spending amounts. Second Suppl. Mem.,

Attach. 1, Decl. of Kari Lake at 6–7.

This representation remains deficient. Listing such significant quantities of money in broad

strokes and generalities, without any further breakdown of activities that comprise those hundreds

of millions of dollars in spending, is useless to the Court and insufficient to show faithful execution

of the programmatic goals evidenced by Congress’s appropriation. For example, the defendants

report that over half of their appropriations—$137.106 million—have thus far been spent on

“Regional Broadcasting Operations” with no further detail. Second Suppl. Mem. at 6. But the

Court cannot see how this reported figure could possibly map on to the FY 2025 Budget

Justification.

A closer look at each spending category quickly reveals why. The FY 2025 Budget

Justification lists VOA spending figures as $38.19 million for the Africa Division; $52.35 million

for the East Asia and Pacific Division; $32.7 million for the Eurasia Division; $13.09 million for

the Latin America Division; and $32.775 million for the South Asia Division. See Summary of

Appropriated Funds, FY 2025 Congressional Budget Justification at 65–67. These numbers are

further broken down into categories for each language service in each region. For example, the

Africa Division chart lists spending figures ranging anywhere from $2–6 million each for

languages services in Bambara, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, French, Hausa, Amharic, Tigrigna, Afaan

Oromoo, Portuguese, Somali, Swahili, and Shona. Id. at 65. But the agency has since eliminated

all of these language services. So, of course, the Court cannot make sense of the defendants’

5 reported spending figure of $137.206 million in “Regional Broadcasting Operations” when nearly

all of the regional broadcasting operations have been dark for months now.

The Court suspects that a large portion of the defendants’ reported spending figures

represent salaries being paid to the 600-plus VOA employees3 who have been on administrative

leave since March. But surely, when Congress appropriated $260 million to VOA for FY 2025, it

did not anticipate that such a significant sum of taxpayer funds would be used to pay employees

to sit at home for months on end, making no contribution to VOA’s statutory mandate.4 The

defendants need to explain how they are spending the hundreds of millions of dollars appropriated

to VOA to carry out its statutory mandate with news and broadcasting operations—without simply

parroting back the amount of money being paid for furloughed employees to do nothing. Without

more explanation, the Court is left to conclude that the defendants are simply trying to run out the

clock on the fiscal year, without putting the money Congress appropriated toward the purposes

Congress intended. The legal term for that is “waste,” and it is precisely what federal appropriation

law aims to avoid.

3 To be clear, the defendants have not disclosed to the Court how many VOA employees are on administrative leave. Before March 15, 2025, VOA had 1,300 employees. Widakuswara Compl. ¶¶ 74–75, ECF No. 1. On March 15, all of them were placed on administrative leave. Id. At the end of May, USAGM terminated nearly 600 VOA personal service contractors, bringing the number of VOA employees down to roughly 700. Decl. of Kathryn Neeper ¶ 11, ECF No. 112-3. Because the defendants now represent that there are 75 active VOA employees, the Court infers that the over 600 are still on administrative leave. 4 Indeed, in the relevant appropriations statute, Congress specifically provided that “significant modifications to USAGM broadcast hours previously justified to Congress, including changes to transmission platforms (shortwave, medium wave, satellite, Internet, and television), for all USAGM language services shall be subject to regular notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations.” See Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, Pub L. No. 118-47, 138 Stat. 460, 735–36. Congress also forbade USAGM from reprogramming more than five percent of VOA’s funding and provided that even that modest reprogramming was subject to a 15-day notice period to Congress. 2024 Appropriations Act, div. F, tit. I, 138 Stat. 735; see 170 Cong. Rec. at H2087. The Court observes that the defendants did submit a congressional notification before reprogramming five percent of appropriated funds from USAGM grantee networks (RFE/RL, Open Technology Fund, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and Radio Free Asia) to “Mission Support.” See First Suppl. Mem., Attach. 4, Congressional Notification Regarding Reprogramming of Grantee Funding., ECF No. 123-4. But there is no indication that the defendants have undertaken any notification procedures before eliminating the vast majority of VOA operations—which, in any event, would presumably exceed the five percent funding limit on reprogramming.

6 It bears repeating that “a President sometimes has policy reasons . . . for wanting to spend

less than the full amount appropriated by Congress for a particular project or program. But in

those circumstances, even the President does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend the

funds. Instead, the President must propose the rescission of funds, and Congress then may decide

whether to approve a rescission bill.” In re Aiken Cnty., 725 F.3d 255, 261 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2013).

Indeed, the President recently sought—and Congress passed—a rescission of appropriations for

the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding to National Public Radio

(“NPR”) and Public Broadcasting Service (“PBS”). See Rescissions Act of 2025, Pub. L. No. 119-

28. No such rescission has been requested for any of the funds that Congress appropriated to VOA,

and the Executive branch has no residual authority to refuse to spend the funds absent a rescission.

To be sure, it is for the political branches, not the courts, to decide whether to seek rescission of

an appropriation. But it is squarely within the judicial prerogative to hold the Executive branch to

account when it appears to bypass legislative mandates. See In re Aiken Cnty., 725 F.3d at 261

n.1. Because the defendants seem to see it otherwise, they must show cause as to how their actions

handling congressional appropriations are compliant with this Court’s preliminary injunction.

III. The defendants are providing misleading and contradictory information and appear to be violating numerous statutory provisions.

Several other issues in the defendants’ filings warrant the Court’s action here. The

defendants’ descriptions of their activities are cryptic and even misleading, lacking the requisite

detail needed for the Court to evaluate compliance with the preliminary injunction. And

troublingly, the crumbs of data provided suggest the defendants are ignoring several statutory

mandates.

The defendants represent that they are “broadcasting in . . . Mandarin, Farsi, Dari, and

Pashto.” Second Suppl. Mem., Attach. 1, Decl. of Kari Lake ¶ 14. But the defendants have never

7 actually reported any radio or television broadcasting in Mandarin. See Soltani Decl. ¶ 7, ECF

No. 117-1 (describing only minimal web and social media content in Mandarin). As far as this

Court can tell, the defendants are using the term “broadcasting” as a catch-all term to refer to radio,

television, and online distribution, without disaggregating which types of broadcasting and media

are occurring in which languages, and for how long. Given that the International Broadcasting

Act requires VOA to “communicat[e] directly with the peoples of the world by radio,” 22 U.S.C.

§ 6202(c) (emphasis added), it is crucial that the Court receive detailed, accurate information about

VOA’s activities in each relevant medium. Furthermore, in their latest filing the defendants ceased

providing information about Farsi language operations since the Court has admonished the

defendants not to “tout[] activities undertaken by staff that will soon be fired.” Order for Second

Suppl. Mem. at 3. The Court is left to conclude that the defendants will soon halt VOA’s Persian

news operations, if they have not already.

In attempting to explain why VOA has whittled down to a paucity of coverage in only Dari,

Pashto, Farsi, and Mandarin, the defendants fail to engage with the additional statutory provisions

regarding required language programming. See, e.g., Further Consolidated Appropriations Act

2024, 138 Stat. 813 (including funds to “maintain broadcasting hours into North Korea at levels

not less than the prior fiscal year”); Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and

1993, Pub. L. No. 102-138, § 234 (“As soon as practicable but not later than one year after

enactment, the Voice of America Kurdish language programming pursuant to this section shall be

broadcast for not less than 1 hour each day.”); id. § 233 (“The Director of the United States

Information Agency shall establish distinct Croatian and Serbian programs within the Yugoslavian

section of the Voice of America.”).

8 Finally, the defendants have also made contradictory representations to the Court. In the

defendants’ first supplemental memorandum, they submitted a sworn declaration stating that

USAGM had “recommenced shortwave radio broadcasts from the Edward R. Murrow Shortwave

Transmitting Station in Greenville, [North Carolina], as of 12:00PM EDT, today, June 27, 2025.”

First Suppl. Mem., Attach. 1, Decl. of Frank Wuco ¶ 19. However, in the second supplemental

memorandum, the defendants make no mention of any current radio broadcasts from the Edward

R. Murrow Station, now stating only that the facility is a “hub for future VOA activities” and

referring to instances where the station has provided surge capacity in the past. Second Suppl.

Mem., Attach. 1, Decl. of Kari Lake ¶ 11. This sort of flip-flopping—in sworn declarations—

raises severe concern and provides yet another basis for entering a show cause order for the

defendants to provide a truthful, accurate, and detailed plan regarding VOA’s ongoing operations.

IV. The Court orders the defendants to show cause as to how they plan to comply with Part III of this Court’s preliminary injunction.

For all of these reasons, the Court concludes that judicial intervention is needed to ensure

the defendants’ compliance with the preliminary injunction. The Court observes one last

development that lends support for the Court’s action here. Although the defendants represent to

this Court that they intend to operate VOA in accordance with its statutory mandate, defendants’

statements outside the courtroom indicate otherwise. Defendant Kari Lake made the following

on-the-record statement to a news publication, as reported on July 22: “[O]ur goal is to shut the

entire agency down as per the instructions of President Trump . . . . And so I’m working to

eliminate the agency, and it’s been a big job, but we’re working hard at it.”5 This statement is

5 Severi, M. & Richards, S., “Kari Lake Bombshell: VOA managers met with Chinese to discuss more favorable coverage for Beijing.” JUST THE NEWS (published July 22, 2025), https://justthenews.com/government/federal- agencies/kari-lake-says-chinese-officials-told-voa-how-cover-their- country?utm_medium=social_media&utm_source=mail_social_icon&utm_campaign=social_icons.

9 deeply troubling amid proceedings to determine the defendants’ compliance with VOA’s statutory

mandate.

The Court has provided the defendants with every opportunity to demonstrate that they are

complying with the preliminary injunction in good faith. To be clear, the Court does not seek to

micromanage the affairs of USAGM or dictate how VOA should be run, and to that end, has

allowed the defendants to submit multiple filings in support of their purported compliance while

the Court has taken the pending motions under advisement. But at this point, with only two months

left in the fiscal year and no clear understanding of how the defendants intend to fulfill VOA’s

statutory mandates, the Court must take action.

To that end, it is hereby

ORDERED that the defendants must provide the following information:

1. Explain how, since April 22, the defendants have complied with Part III of the

preliminary injunction, including:

a. How the defendants have restored VOA programming such that VOA is

producing and broadcasting news consistent with the International

Broadcasting Act, in each relevant medium (radio, television, and online

content), and for each language in which VOA is operating;

b. How the defendants’ actions are consistent with VOA’s congressional

appropriations;

c. Whether the defendants have notified Congress of their significant reduction in

broadcast hours, as required by the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of

2024;