Trump can’t 'shut down' major public broadcaster 'with one sentence': judge

The international public broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty landed a legal victory over President Donald Trump on Tuesday when a federal judge temporarily restrained his administration from terminating its funding.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth agreed with the radio broadcaster when he found in a 10-page order critical of the administration’s move that the decision could be a violation of law, as funds have been appropriated by Congress, not the president since 1973.

“The Court concludes, in keeping with Congress’s longstanding determination, that the continued operation of RFE/RL is in the public interest,” Lamberth wrote Tuesday.

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He added that the leadership of the United States Agency for Global Media “cannot, with one sentence of reasoning offering virtually no explanation, force RFE/RL to shut down—even if the President has told them to do so.”

Lamberth’s order temporarily restrained Kari Lake, special advisor to the federal parent agency overseeing Voice of America, from moving forward with axing funding as directed by Trump in an executive order earlier this month.

He said Lake, the sole defendant in the radio broadcaster’s lawsuit, can “take no steps and impose no obligations relating to closing out the plaintiff’s grant.”

Based in Prague, Czech Republic, RFE/RL maintains close to two dozen bureaus and a corporate office in Washington, D.C. The international broadcaster said its mission is to "promote democratic values by providing accurate, uncensored news and open debate in countries where a free press is threatened and disinformation is pervasive," according to its website.