DOJ tells Voice of America it can resume programming, return to office: Report
Employees at the government-funded international news service Voice of America are allowed to start a “phased return” to the office and begin programming as soon as next week following President Donald Trump’s attempt to dismantle the media organization, the Washington Post reported. In an email also obtained by Politico, Michael Abramowitz, the director of Voice of America, said the Department of Justice told him the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees VOA and gives federal funding to nonprofit grantees, is restoring access to employee accounts.
Trump order
A March executive order signed by Trump mandated the elimination of USAGM to continue reducing “the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary.”
Voice of America journalists and other affected networks sued, calling the dismantling of VOA “unconstitutional.” U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth blocked the shuttering of the agency, and issued a preliminary injunction against Trump’s order on April 22.
A federal appeals court upheld Lamberth’s order on April 24, which allows VOA to be operational while the appeal goes through the courts.
In an email to David Seide of the Government Accountability Project, which he shared with the Washington Post, Brenda González Horowitz, an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, said some VOA and USAGM staffers now have access to their government accounts.
“USAGM currently expects staff to begin to return to the office next week, as security, building space, and equipment issues require a phased return,” Horowitz’s email said.
Meanwhile, Abramowitz said in his email that he looks forward to “VOA resuming operations as soon as possible.”
What is VOA?
Voice of America has operated since World War II, and gets news into authoritarian countries without a free press. Then-President Gerald Ford signed VOA’s charter in 1976.
The organization has a statutory “firewall” that protects it from interference by the government.
It has since grown to an audience of more than 354 million people worldwide, according to VOA’s website.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
