March 26 (UPI) — A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to halt a freeze on funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth for the District of Columbia granted a temporary restraining order Tuesday that states the United States Agency for Global Media, led by Kari Lake, did not provide sufficient reasoning for shutting down RFE/RL”even if the president has told them to do so.”
Judge Lamberth wrote that the one-sentence termination letter wasn’t a “satisfactory explanation” and issued the order because the REF/RL lawsuit “has shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim that in taking this action.”
He also wrote that USAGM “cannot, with one sentence of reasoning offering virtually no explanation, force RFE/RL to shut down.”
The judge ruled that as Congress had already approved its funding, that determined “the continued operation of RFE/RL is in the public interest,” and issued the temporary restraining order, which means RFE/RL will receive approximately $7.5 million, which Congress had previously appropriated for operations already completed through the first two weeks of March.
In a press release, RFE/RL said its next move is a “request for a preliminary injunction that would require USAGM to provide the approximately $77 million that Congress appropriated” for its operations over the rest of the fiscal year.
No date has been set for the injunction yet, but Lamberth concluded his ruling with “The Court intends to rule on the preliminary injunction motion expeditiously.”
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on March 14 that defunded RFE/RL, as well as six other agencies. He deemed then “unnecessary.” and insisted that the targeted entities “reduce the performance,” of their “statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
USAGM responded by cutting grants to RFE/RL on March 15, and sent them a termination letter which stated, with just one sentence, that the grant RFE/RL uses for its funding “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”
RFE/RL filed a lawsuit on March 18 that alleged that since Congress appropriates funds for RFE/RL through the International Broadcasting Act of 1973, UGASM violated federal law by “refusing to disburse the appropriated funds on the basis that it is ending its ‘non-statutory’ functions.”
