Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump listens as Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake speaks at a campaign rally at the Findlay Toyota Arena Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Prescott Valley, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).
Former news anchor and failed Republican political candidate turned senior adviser to the acting CEO of the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) Kari Lake was called out on Wednesday in a court ruling for “flip-flopping” in court about whether — and to what degree — the Voice of America (VOA) is still functioning, as required by law, following sweeping Trump administration cuts.
Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee who has presided over various Jan. 6 cases and other high-profile disputes, was not pleased about the “cagey” answers and “misleading and contradictory information” he”s received from the Trump administration in the aftermath of a preliminary injunction in the case.
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In March, a group of journalists led by former VOA White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara filed a lawsuit against Lake over efforts to shut down the VOA news network and other federally-funded global media organizations despite a congressionally enacted “statutory mandate that VOA continuously broadcast to the world[.]”
Fired Director of the VOA Michael Abramowitz also separately sued Lake.
While President Donald Trump in an executive order that month called the organization “the voice of radical America,” the plaintiffs have countered that what was actually radical was the sudden and wholesale “dismantling by decree an agency created and mandated by Congress[.]”
In April, Lamberth granted Abramowitz a preliminary injunction, after a New York federal judge granted Widakuswara a temporary restraining order a month earlier.
On Wednesday, after the plaintiffs in both cases moved for an “Order to Show Cause” to force the Trump administration to comply, Lamberth noted that the injunction required the Lake defendants to “restore” VOA “programming such that USAGM fulfills its statutory mandate that VOA ‘serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.'”
From there, the judge made clear that he was not happy with the administration’s response, directly calling out Lake and another declarant for “flip-flopping—in sworn declarations” before the court.
“The defendants have consistently refused to give the Court the full story regarding personnel actions,” read one heading in Lamberth’s ruling.
The judge said that “even with” a “direct command to provide complete information on VOA’s future operational capacity and staffing levels,” the Trump administration has remained “cagey” in its answers and “omit[ted] key information.”
Worse yet, “cryptic and even misleading […] crumbs of data” from the Trump administration has led the judge to believe that the “defendants are ignoring several statutory mandates.”
By way of example, Lamberth mentioned the apparent “contradictory representations to the Court” that Frank Wuco and Lake gave.
Wuco, a conservative radio host turned USAGM senior adviser, declared in late June that USAGM had “recommenced shortwave radio broadcasts from the Edward R. Murrow Shortwave Transmitting Station in Greenville, [North Carolina], as of 12:00PM EDT, today, June 27, 2025,” the judge recounted.
Then, in July, Lake’s declaration made “no mention of any current radio broadcasts from the Edward R. Murrow Station, now stating only that the facility is a ‘hub for future VOA activities,'” the order continued.
“This sort of flip-flopping—in sworn declarations—raises severe concern and provides yet another basis for entering a show cause order for the defendants to provide a truthful, accurate, and detailed plan regarding VOA’s ongoing operations,” the judge said.
In addition, Lamberth said it was “deeply troubling” that Lake said outside of court that she was “working to eliminate the agency” as USAGM purported inside of court to be complying with the law.
“This statement is deeply troubling amid proceedings to determine the defendants’ compliance with VOA’s statutory mandate,” he wrote. “The Court has provided the defendants with every opportunity to demonstrate that they are complying with the preliminary injunction in good faith.”
Concluding that “judicial intervention is needed,” Lamberth, issued a show cause order demanding answers by Aug. 13 to multiple questions, including on the extent to which VOA programming has been restored, “[h]ow the defendants’ actions are consistent with VOA’s congressional appropriations,” and staffing levels.
Read Lamberth’s order in full here.
Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.
