Federal judge blocks Trump from shuttering Radio Free Europe

WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s effort to cut funding for Radio Free Europe, a nonprofit news agency funded by the U.S. government that operates in 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, granted a temporary restraining order preventing the U.S Agency for Global Media from shutting down Radio Free Europe after the government indicated it would disburse $7.5 million in frozen funds.

“The leadership of USAGM cannot, with one sentence of reasoning offering virtually no explanation, force Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to shut down — even if the president has told them to do so,” Lamberth wrote in a 10-page order.

Radio Free Europe was created in 1949 to broadcast in Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe, while Radio Liberty was established in 1951 to target the Soviet Union itself in an effort to counter Communism during the Cold War. The two organizations were covertly funded by the CIA until 1972 and merged in 1976.

The organization is governed by the Agency for Global Media, originally the Broadcasting Board of Governors, along with Voice of America and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting — operated by the government — and the independent nonprofits Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the Open Technology Fund and the Frontline Media Fund.

The so-called Department of Government Efficiency targeted the organization, along with Voice of America, as a cost-saving measure, similar to its efforts against independent agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Institute for Peace and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

On March 15, Kari Lake, senior adviser to the acting CEO of the Agency for Global Media, sent Radio Free Europe a termination letter, citing President Donald Trump’s March 14 executive order, “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” as the basis for terminating the outlet’s federal grants.

According to the letter, Radio Free Europe did not perform statutorily required functions and no longer effectuated the agency’s priorities.

Radio Free Europe sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 18, arguing that funding for the organization is a statutory function of the Agency for Global Media.

“Whether to disburse funds as directed by appropriations laws, and whether to make those funds available through grants as directed by the International Broadcasting Act, is not an optional choice for the agency to make,” the organization said. “It is the law.”

On Monday, shortly before a motion hearing, the government said in a notice that it would release the $7,464,559 by next Monday.

Lamberth ruled that Radio Free Liberty’s claim that the sudden termination was arbitrary and capricious, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, was likely to succeed upon further proceedings.

The government’s decision to release the frozen funds was not enough to mitigate the irreparable harm the organization would suffer, Lamberth said, as it would have to halt the use of all funds already appropriated.

That meant the organization would be forced to break leases, terminate employees and cease all operations, “thus destroying the credibility RFE/RL has built over decades.”

Lamberth noted that Congress has continued funding the organization annually for the past 75 years.

“Since its inception, RFE/RL has continued to expand, responding to threats to democracy and media freedom across the globe,” Lamberth wrote. “The court concludes, in keeping with Congress’s longstanding determination, that the continued operation of RFE/RL is in the public interest.”

The ruling is the latest example of the judiciary reversing the Trump administration’s wide-ranging attempts to reshape the federal government, reduce spending and cut government programs at home and abroad.

Many of the legal challenges have sought temporary restraining orders, a form of emergency relief that judges use in rare instances. However, they have become more common in the early months of the Trump administration as the government employs sudden, unilateral action that upends the usual judicial timeline.

Trump and his allies in Congress have begun efforts to limit the judiciary’s ability to hamper Trump’s policy agenda, such as a bill introduced Monday by Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley that would restrict judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions.

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