In the latest battle over the future of Voice of America, a fresh group of veteran Voice of America journalists are suing Trump administration official Kari Lake, alleging that she is promoting pro-Trump propaganda on air. They also contend she has trampled the network's editorial independence in violation of federal law and First Amendment principles.
"The Voice of America has been breaching the Constitutional and statutory rules that require that outlet not to push propaganda or censorship," one of the lead attorneys on the lawsuit, Norm Eisen, tells NPR. "In a time of crisis and conflict, like what we have right now in Iran, people count on the U.S. government broadcasts, and in particular, the Voice of America, to tell the truth."
Lake and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees the network, could not immediately be reached for comment. Trump called the coverage on Voice of America anti-American propaganda in ordering the network cut back to its smallest legal size last March. Lake's efforts to put that call into action have been challenged in prior lawsuits filed by VOA journalists and drawn rebukes from a federal judge overseeing them.
The new lawsuit also names Michael Rigas, the U.S. State Department official who is the newly named acting CEO for the agency.
The Voice of America was founded in the early days of the U.S. involvement in World War II to broadcast factual accounts of the fight against the Axis powers into Nazi-occupied nations. It included Allied setbacks and defeats, as well as its victories, to build credibility.
The network continued as a demonstration of soft power during the Cold War and beyond, broadcasting and streaming news into lands without a free press to offer unbiased journalism. It also served as a demonstration of a pluralistic society for audiences living under repressive regimes, incorporating debate and dissent and allowing journalists rather than politicians to set the news agenda.
Until last year, it reached more than 360 million people globally a week, according to official estimates.
Allegations that Lake slashed the newsroom, then pushed a pro-Trump line
Following Trump's March 2025 executive order to reduce Voice of America's footprint, Lake fired the network's contractors and placed more than 1,000 network employees on paid administrative leave.
In doing so, Lake also slashed Voice of America 49 language services to six.
As Lake has suffered legal setbacks to that drive, however, she has sought to infuse what reports do appear with a pro-Trump sheen, the lawsuit alleges. She canceled contracts with the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies and negotiated a deal for Voice of America to carry reports from the right-wing One American News Network, though such content has not run to date.
As NPR reported last month, some Voice of America journalists balked at what the network broadcast in Persian, one of the language services still operating, though on a reduced schedule. According to those journalists, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, the network heavily promoted President Trump and the line coming from the White House and the U.S. State Department about the war with Iran at any given time.
For example, the service broadcast an hour-long glowing retrospective on Trump's first year back in office, including full-throated praise from the anchor. Lake herself appeared in a five-minute segment during that broadcast, repeatedly lauding the president.
The lawsuit alleges that Voice of America journalists were censored from reporting the support for the son of the late Shah in anti-regime protests that erupted across Iran in January.
In another instance, the U.S. Agency for Global Media executive overseeing the Persian-language service, Ali Javanmardi, spoke directly to the camera in several reports, directly identifying the interest of the Iranian public with Trump's agenda, and telling them to continue protesting in the streets.
While the Voice of America regularly carried clearly identified editorials to convey official U.S. policy, these segments appeared to be more political analysis or a newscast than something marked as opinion. Moreover, as NPR has previously reported, Javanmardi's role in setting the news coverage for the Voice of America Persian service would appear to violate Congressional protections as set up in what's called a "firewall," a set of legal protections meant to shield the network's editorial independence from the political interference of the U.S. government.
Last week, a federal judge overseeing a series of related cases involving Voice of America and its federal parent, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, ruled Lake's actions over the past year to be unlawful. Lake said she had been delegated nearly all powers from the agency's CEO position; Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled she had not been assigned that authority legitimately and ordered the full-time employees to be returned to work.
Judge Lamberth has ruled previously that the agency unlawfully withheld money directly assigned by Congress to Voice of America and its sister networks. A bipartisan group of lawmakers recently set aside four times as much money as Lake had requested for the agency; she had asked only for enough money to shut it down entirely.
The new lawsuit alleging Lake's political interference, was filed by the former acting director of Voice of America's central news division, Barry Newhouse; the director of VOA's South and Central Asia division, Ayesha Tanzeem; the Korean-language service chief, Dong Hyuk Lee; and a journalist for the Russian language service, Ksenia Turkova, deemed a foreign agent by the Putin regime.
"The integrity of VOA's content is not just a legal requirement — it is in the national interest," the plaintiffs said in a joint statement. "For decades, VOA has represented America's commitment to freedom of the press to audiences who are denied this right in their own countries. Allowing that legacy to be compromised from within serves no one — least of all the United States."
All of the plaintiffs but Turkova are full-time employees who were put on paid administrative leave. She was a contractor offered a chance to return but held off, according to the lawsuit, over concerns that she would not have had room to pursue her reporting freely without being influenced by the Trump administration's agenda. The lawsuit alleges that constitutes a violation of the First Amendment as well as the firewall enshrined in law.
PEN America and Reporters Without Borders, both organizations protecting reporters and advocating for press freedom, have also joined the lawsuit.
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