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Left: Kari Lake speaking during the second day of the Republican National Convention, Tuesday, July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite). Right: President Donald Trump at a press conference at the White House in Washington on February 27, 2025 (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Sipa USA; via AP Images).
A federal judge recently criticized the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and Voice of America (VOA), labeling the actions as unlawful. In a twist, the judge used Kari Lake’s own deposition against her, noting that the former Arizona gubernatorial candidate failed to have an opinion on a fundamental legal question she was expected to understand.
Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, known for his conservative views and appointed by President Ronald Reagan, emphasized this in his detailed opinion. He included a notable footnote justifying why he dismissed the government’s objections and included the depositions of Kari Lake, senior adviser Frank Wuco, and VOA’s Persian broadcasts director, Leili Soltani, in the case’s records. You can read the full opinion here.
Judge Lamberth argued that the objections were unfounded, pointing out that the defendants had consistently failed to provide the necessary administrative records. These were crucial to the case and should have accompanied their motion to dismiss. The depositions, Lamberth insisted, were essential precisely because of this “ongoing refusal to produce basic information about USAGM and VOA’s operations and future plans.”
The judge highlighted that it was only after he threatened to hold Kari Lake in contempt that the agency defendants disclosed the “Statutory Minimum Memorandum.” This memorandum was an agency action following President Donald Trump’s executive order from March 2025, aimed at further reducing the “federal bureaucracy,” as detailed here.
Lamberth didn’t mince words, describing the defendants’ consistent withholding of critical information as a “Hallmark production in bad faith.” He stated that this behavior more than justified the inclusion of the depositions in the legal proceedings.
Lake’s evasive answers about whether the VOA was functioning at the legal and statutory bare minimum mandated by Congress sparked the judge’s ire in August, leading him to order her deposition.
Just over a week ago, Lamberth additionally ruled the Trump administration unlawfully delegated Lake “nearly all” the authority of the USAGM’s CEO, an issue known by those closely following the DOJ’s losses in court over interim or acting U.S. attorney appointments.
Lake began at USAGM as a senior adviser but got an upgraded title of deputy CEO and eventually started holding herself out for months as acting CEO.
As a result, the judge found actions Lake took from July to November 2025 while wielding that authority were “void,” including firings.
Lamberth’s latest opinion recounted that Lake one year ago responded to Trump’s executive order by promptly putting more than 1,000 employees on administrative leave and ripping up hundreds of contracts.
The results of Lake’s deposition about her actions evidently didn’t impress the judge, a boost for the plaintiffs who insisted all along that ideologues were trampling on the “statutory mandate that VOA continuously broadcast to the world[.]”
If Lake, a former news anchor, can’t or won’t form an opinion on “significant” places for the U.S. to broadcast as required by law, and with an understanding of “censorship or repression” unique to regions around the world, that’s a problem, Lamberth suggested.
“Defendant Lake has repeatedly thumbed her nose at these statutory requirements, testifying that she has no opinion about which countries censor and repress their people — or even the basic question of which regions of the world qualify as significant, as would be required just to feign compliance with 22 U.S.C. § 6202(b)(6) and (7),” Lamberth said. “These refusals constitute a ‘transparent violation[] of a clear duty to act.’”
The statute the judge referred to says U.S. “international broadcasting shall include information about developments in each significant region of the world” and “a variety of opinions and voices from within particular nations and regions prevented by censorship or repression from speaking to their fellow countrymen[.]”
Lamberth said the plaintiffs came up with “undisputed evidence” that the VOA is “unable to operate its Iran service at current staffing levels, despite a statutory mandate to do so,” as a war unfolds.
“Apart from boilerplate responses, the defendants rebut none of these facts,” he added, ordering employees back to work and ensuring the VOA is functioning as mandated by Congress.