Judge blocks Trump's attempt to fire VOA director

Aug. 29 (UPI) — A federal judge has prohibited the Trump administration from dismissing Voice of America director Michael Abramowitz, handing President Donald Trump a defeat in his effort to dismantle the government-run and federally funded international news organization.

In his ruling Thursday, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of D.C. stated that the Trump administration cannot fire Abramowitz without approval of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board.

“The applicable statutory requirements could not be clearer: the director of Voice of America ‘may only be removed if such action has been approved by a majority of the vote,'” Lamberth wrote.

“There is no longer a question of whether the termination was unlawful.”

Trump has sought to dismantle Voice of America, a decades-old soft-power tool for the United States that broadcasts news internationally, since returning to the White House in January, stating the broadcaster creates anti-Trump and “radical propaganda.”

On taking office, Trump fired six of the seven International Broadcasting Advisory Board members, and then in March placed Abramowitz and 1,300 other Voice of American employees on administrative leave.

On July 8, the U.S. Agency for Global Media informed Abramowitz that he was being reassigned as chief management officer to Greenville, N.C., and if he did not accept the position, he would be fired.

Before the end of the month, Abramowitz sued.

Then on Aug. 1, USAGM sent Abramowitz a letter stating he would be fired effective the end of this month if he did not accept the Greenville transfer.

The government had argued before the court that Abramowitz’s claims are not valid because he has not yet been fired, and that the rule dictating advisory board approval for hiring and firing a VOA director interfered with Trump’s executive authority.

In response, Lamberth, a President Ronald Reagan appointee, countered that whether USAGM fired Abramowitz or transferred him, he would still be removed from his position without the board’s approval, and if the Trump wished to have a vote on the matter, he could replace the board members he removed.

“To the extent the Board’s current lack of quorum institutes a practical barrier to removing Abramowitz, the Broadcast Act gives the President a straightforward remedy: replacing the removed members,” he wrote.

“The defendants do not even feign that their efforts to remove Abramowitz comply with that statutory requirement. How could they, when the board has been without a quorum since January?”