Split DC Circuit Blocks Court Orders Pausing Global Media Cuts

The Trump administration can withhold funds from news networks supported by the US Agency for Global Media while it appeals court orders requiring it to disburse the cash, the DC Circuit said Saturday.

The government is likely to succeed in its appeal because the lower court likely lacked jurisdiction in enjoining USAGM’s staff cuts and ordering the agency to restore grants for the networks, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said in a May 3 per curiam opinion.

“At most, the statutes in question required USAGM to allocate the appropriated amounts through grants enforceable as contracts, which USAGM has done,” the majority said.

But Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard, an Obama nominee, in a dissent said the stay “all but guarantees that the networks will no longer exist in any meaningful form” by the time the cases are resolved.

A group of Voice of America journalists sued USAGM after it terminated the contracts and employment of nearly its entire staff, alleging the actions effectively shut down the organization in violation of congressional mandates. Several networks funded by USAGM grants—including Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks Inc.—sued the agency after it refused to continue funding the networks.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth, of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, granted injunctions in the cases, requiring the government to disburse millions of dollars in grants and reinstate terminated employees and contractors.

The DC Circuit issued an administrative stay of the injunctions on May 1.

The VOA plaintiffs’ APA claims rest on “a collection of ‘many individual actions’ that cannot be packaged together,” the majority said in its May 3 order. While the “employees and contractors might have viable, discrete claims with respect to their individual personnel actions, those claims must be pursued through other remedial channels,” the order says.

The plaintiffs’ claims that the government failed to comply with its statutory obligations to provide the networks funding also “necessarily challenge its performance under the grants"—specifically, an obligation to make monthly payments to the networks—which are “squarely contract claims under the Tucker Act,” the majority said.

The VOA plaintiffs’ constitutional claims also flow from allegations that the administration “has failed to abide by governing congressional statutes,” which don’t trigger the “distinctively strong presumptions favoring judicial review of constitutional claims,” the majority said.

The government will also face irreparable harm absent a stay, including that USAGM can’t recover funds it disperses even if it prevails on appeal, the majority said.

But Pillard said the action the VOA plaintiffs challenge “is discrete and clear"—namely, the halting of all work by VOA. Even though the government executed “many unlawful agency actions in short order,” that doesn’t prevent judicial scrutiny of the government’s actions, Pillard added.

The networks’ suit “at its core” also challenges the government’s alleged disregard of congressional funding mandates, Pillard wrote. Interpreting the Tucker Act to preclude jurisdiction in the district court “is utterly inconsistent with both this court’s and the Supreme Court’s longstanding understanding” of the statute, she said.

There is also “no scenario” where the claims brought by some of the plaintiffs “could conceivably be channeled” through other forums, including the Merit Systems Protection Board or the Court of Federal Claims, Pillard said.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s administrative stay is still in place, as the court’s May 3 order didn’t apply to that case. The organization’s emergency petition for initial hearing en banc is pending.

Judges Gregory G. Katsas and Neomi Rao, both Trump nominees, were also on the panel.

Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, Ballard Spahr LLP, Norman Eisen PLLC, and others represent the Widakuswara plaintiffs. Zuckerman Spaeder LLP represents the Abramowitz plaintiffs. Democracy Forward Foundation and Munger Tolles & Olson LLP represent Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks Inc. Covington & Burling LLP represents RFE/RL.

The cases are Widakuswara v. Lake, D.C. Cir., No. 25-05144, 5/3/25, Radio Free Asia v. United States, D.C. Cir., No. 25-05151, 5/3/25, Abramowitz v. Lake, D.C. Cir., No. 25-05145, 5/3/25, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks Inc. v. United States, D.C. Cir., No. 25-05150, 5/3/25.