Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—D.C. Circuit denies Trump administration’s request for a stay pending appeal in suit over Voice of America director’s removal, (Oct 7, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

Below, the district court ruled in favor of the ousted director and granted injunctive relief.

Yesterday, the D.C. Circuit ruled against the Trump administration, which sought a stay pending appeal of a lower court’s decision requiring reinstatement of the Voice of America director, Michael Abramowitz.

The appeals court cited the fact that the director “remains on administrative leave pursuant to Executive action not at issue” and thus is not “exercising the executive power” in order to distinguish it from the circumstances underlying the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Boyle.

Boyle and Wilcox. In Boyle (which had, in turn, relied upon Trump v. Wilcox), the court explained, the High Court had concluded that “the Government faces a greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being unable to perform [his] duty.” The D.C. Circuit panel explained: “That judgment rests in part on recognition of “the disruptive effect of the repeated removal and reinstatement of officers,” Wilcox, 145 S. Ct. at 1415, and it “inform[s] how [we] should exercise [our] equitable discretion in like cases,” Boyle, 145 S. Ct. at 2654.”

No disruptive effect. Here, denying the stay would not have a disruptive effect during pendency of the litigation, since the parties agreed that the administration could appoint an Acting Director to fulfill the position’s duties in the interim. Although the administration asserted that Abramowitz’s “continued occupation of the Director role—even just on paper” prevented it from appointing a replacement, that assertion was “incorrect,” the court stated. “The Director of Voice of America is an inferior officer, and neither the President nor the CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media may remove or appoint anyone to that position without majority approval of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, 22 U.S.C. § 6205(e), a separate Executive Branch agency that has been inquorate since January 2025.”

No Board. Indeed, in January, the President fired the members of that board. Allowing the administration to remove the director “from office during the pendency of this litigation would therefore not enable the President to appoint a replacement until the President nominates, and the Senate confirms, new members of the Board.”

“Where a preliminary injunction against removal of an officer neither permits him, in substance, to exercise any part of the Executive power, nor otherwise threatens to disrupt the proper functioning of the Executive Branch,” the court explained, “the Government does not face the “risk of harm” the Supreme Court has identified in support of staying injunctions while litigation progresses.”

Abramowitz responded. “While I am gratified by the court’s ruling, the most important thing is getting VOA back to work after the government shutdown is over and fulfilling the agency’s vital mission,” Abramowitz said in a message shared on X by SaveVOA.

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