Kari Lake illegally ran US media agency, federal judge says

PHOENIX — Kari Lake did not have the legal authority to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media, a federal judge ruled Saturday, invalidating many of the actions she took while overseeing the government-funded broadcaster Voice of America.

In a decision issued in Washington, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said the arrangement that put Lake in charge on July 31 violated federal law because she was never properly appointed by the Senate to lead the agency.

Lake returned to the role of Deputy CEO on Nov. 19, two days after the filing of the plaintiffs’ motion, court documents show.

The Saturday ruling came in a lawsuit filed by several agency employees, including Patsy Widakuswara, the White House bureau chief for Voice of America. The plaintiffs argued that Lake had been exercising the powers of the agency’s chief executive without going through the legal appointment process required for the position.

Lamberth agreed, writing that officials improperly gave authority to Lake, effectively making her the agency’s chief executive “in all but name.”

The decision throws into question a series of moves made while Lake was overseeing the agency, including personnel actions that placed large numbers of employees on administrative leave and eliminated hundreds of contractor positions.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which supervises Voice of America and other U.S. government-funded international broadcasters, distributes news programming to audiences around the world.

Lake, a former television news anchor at Fox 10 Phoenix and Republican political candidate, had argued she was working to overhaul what she described as a dysfunctional agency. Lake said on X that she plans to appeal the ruling.

My statement on today’s bogus ruling by an activist judge regarding @USAGM⤵️

The American people gave President Trump a mandate to cut bloated bureaucracy, eliminate waste, and restore accountability to government.

An activist judge is trying to stand in the way of those…

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 8, 2026

Lamberth’s ruling also directs the government to clarify who is legally serving as the agency’s acting leader and to provide a succession plan, adding to uncertainty about who will run the organization in the near term.

The lawsuit is part of a broader legal battle over changes at the agency, where journalists and staff have argued that recent leadership decisions threatened the organization’s operations and editorial independence.

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