A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to restore the Voice of America's operations after large parts of the government-run broadcaster had effectively been shut down a year ago, putting hundreds of employees who have been on administrative leave back to work.
U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth gave the U.S. Agency for Global Media a week to put together a plan for putting Voice of America on the air. It has been operating with a skeleton staff since President Trump issued an executive order to shut it down.
A week ago, Lamberth said Kari Lake, who had been Mr. Trump's choice to lead the agency, did not have the legal authority to do what she had done at VOA because she lacked Senate confirmation. In Tuesday's decision, Lamberth ruled on the actions she had taken to respond to Mr. Trump's order.
The judge reversed the administration's decision to essentially sideline 1,042 of VOA's 1,147 employees and shrink its operations to the "statutory minimum" required by Congress — moves that forced VOA to severely curtail its programming.
Lamberth called the moves "arbitrary and capricious," and said the government didn't take into account federal laws that lay out what languages and regions VOA must serve.
"Defendants have provided nothing approaching a principled basis for their decision," Lamberth wrote.
