Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, REMEDIES, DAMAGES—D.D.C.: USAGM’s August RIF temporarily suspended, (Oct 1, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

“The defendants’ obfuscation of this Court’s requests for information regarding whether their RIF plans comported with the preliminary injunction has wasted precious judicial time and resources and readily supports contempt proceedings.”

Suspending a RIF announced in August by Kari Lake, the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s (USAGM ) acting CEO, a federal court in the District of Columbia explained that the parties have been litigating the defendants’ noncompliance with a provision in a prior preliminary injunction requiring them to restore as ordered Voice of America’s programming and it no longer harbored “any doubt that defendants lack a plan to comply with the preliminary injunction, and instead have been running out the clock on the fiscal year while remaining in violation of even the most meager reading of UASGM and Voice of America’s statutory obligations.” Accordingly, the court paused the proposed RIF not as an end in itself, “but a means toward a resolution of this case, and an implementation of the Executive Branch’s goals, that complies with applicable law” (Widakuswara v. Lake, No. 1:25-cv-01015-RCL (D.D.C. Sept. 29, 2025)).

Terminations. In March 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order directing the elimination, to the maximum extent allowed by law, of USAGM’s non-statutory components and functions. The next day, USAGM’s acting leadership placed 1,042 of its 1,142 full-time employees on administrative leave and terminated the operative grant agreements of its grantee networks. Two days later, USAGM sent out notices of its intent to terminate 29 of its 32 radio broadcast technicians and terminate 594 union members within weeks.

Preliminary injunction. In April 22, the court, in response to a lawsuit filed by various individuals and labor organizations, found that the defendants’ actions were arbitrary and capricious and not in accordance with law. It entered a preliminary injunction that included three provisions requiring the defendants to (1) take all necessary steps to return USAGM employees and contractors to their status prior to the EO; (2) restore the FY 2025 grants with two USAGM networks as specified; and (3) restore VOA programming such that USAGM fulfills its statutory mandate that VOA “serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.”

Prior court proceedings. The defendants appealed the first and second prongs and the D.C. Circuit entered a stay of those prongs on May 3. The plaintiffs sought en banc review, which the D.C. Circuit granted as to prong two. It ultimately dissolved the stay as to that prong but denied reconsideration as to prong one. Because the defendants did not appeal the third prong, it remained in effect.

Order to show cause. Because, however, the VOA operations remained limited, the plaintiffs moved for an order to show cause. Granting the motion, the court ordered the defendants to, among other things, explain how they have complied with prong three of the preliminary injunction, identify the number of USAGM employees who have been recalled, produce all documents reflecting their plan to fully restore VOA programming, and produce all documents relating to their plans to wind down USAGM’s operations.

Due to the defendants’ failure to provide all of the required information, the court allowed the plaintiffs to depose USAGM leadership, including Lake. The defendants subsequently notified the plaintiffs of their intent to initiate a RIF and after Trump, in another EO issued in August, stripped USAGM employees of collective bargaining rights, USAGM terminated AFGE and AFSCME’s collective bargaining agreements, which included a requirement for USAGM to give 60 days’ notice of any potential RIF. The defendants then sent RIF notices to more than 500 USAGM employees, covering the majority of its remaining staff.

No plan. Arguing that the RIFs threaten their efforts to determine whether the defendants have complied with the preliminary injunction, the plaintiffs moved to pause the RIF. In response, the court observed that the defendants have continually resisted its efforts to obtain information concerning their plan, if any, to comply with prong three. And after the depositions, said the court, there was no doubt they lacked any plan.

As an example, the court pointed to the VOA’s statutory obligation to “communicat[e] directly with the people of the world by radio.” While the defendants claimed they were complying with this obligation, they presented evidence only of a single 30-minute live radio program, broadcast five days per week in only two languages. Nor was there any evidence they were complying with Congress’s language-specific broadcasting directives.

The defendants, observed the court, also appeared to be violating their statutory duties to produce content reflecting “variety of opinions and voices from within particular nations and regions prevented by censorship or repression from speaking to their fellow countrymen,” and “information about developments in each significant region of the world.” Indeed, said the court, “the defendants thumb their noses to Congress’s commands and give responses that are dripping with indifference to their statutory obligations.”

Statutory requirements. Further, the court stated, VOA is currently operating in violation of statutory language-, medium-, and audience-specific requirements and is producing content based on the resources and staff currently available. For their part, the court noted, the defendants justify the RIF by asserting that the staffing reductions would “not affect Voice of America’s ability to broadcast as it is currently broadcasting.” This theory of legality, said the court, “thus turns on the adequacy of VOA’s current operations, when in fact, for the reasons just explained, VOA’s current programming is statutorily deficient.”

Enforcement. Instead of providing a rationale for the RIF on its merits, the court observed, the defendants offered several other reasons not to grant relief. While they argued that prong three of the preliminary injunction had nothing to do with personnel issues, contending the D.C. Circuit had spoken on the issue of whether the court could enjoin personnel actions taken in connection with the EO when it stayed prong one, they clung to the stay panel’s ruling with respect to prong one, said the court. And while the D.C. Circuit denied reconsideration of that stay, a majority of the judges on the en banc panel cautioned that the denial “should not be understood to accept... the government’s assertion” that “the district court lacks any authority under [prong (3) of the preliminary injunction] ‘to order personnel actions beyond those that the [government itself] determines are necessary or appropriate to carry out its statutory mandate.” Thus, the court found it could consider the relief sought by the plaintiffs.

The defendants also pointed to McMahon v. New York and Office of Personnel Management v. AFGE—two Supreme Court decisions enjoining RIFs at the Department of Education and six other agencies—suggesting the court should infer from those orders a blanket rule favoring RIFs in this posture. Rejecting this suggestion, the court noted that “any appellate decision can not provide precedential guidance without a statement of reasons from which the Court can analogize to the present facts.” Following the defendants’ suggestion, said the court, “would, in effect, countenance letting the government fill in the blanks of the Supreme Court’s emergency rulings, relinquishing the ‘basic judicial task’ of deciding what the law is.”

Scope of relief. In granting relief, the court noted that it was not taking the position that any level of staffing at VOA or USAGM should constitute a fixed benchmark for minimum statutory compliance. Accordingly, to facilitate enforcement of prong three, the court deferred a final ruling on the plaintiffs’ motion pending further specified proceedings and suspended the RIF announced by Lake in August until it has ruled on the motion following the ordered proceedings.

Disrespect. The court also offered “an observation on the concerning disrespect the defendants have shown toward the Court’s orders since the entry of the preliminary injunction,” noting that, based on the timing of certain events, “it strains credulity to think the RIF was ‘uncertain[]’ or a mere ‘possibility’ as the defendants repeatedly represented to the Court.”

The case is No. 1:25-cv-01015-RCL.

Judge: Lamberth, R.

Attorneys: Daniel M. Eisenberg (Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel) for Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat, and Kathryn Neeper. Brenda A. Gonzalez Horowitz, U.S. Department of Justice, for Kari Lake, Victor Morales, and U.S. Agency for Global Media.

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