The Trump administration is preparing to sell off the longtime home of Voice of America, marking the latest push to downsize the federal government and shut down the international news agency, according to a new report in Bloomberg.
The Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, which houses VOA, its parent agency, the Agency for Global Media, and the Department of Health and Human Services, sits just south of the National Mall and two blocks from the Capitol. The historic, million-square-foot facility is now among several high-profile government-owned properties listed for “accelerated disposal,” Bloomberg reported Thursday.
“The possible sale comes as Trump is trying to shut down VOA and its sister networks — including Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Open Technology Fund — as part of an effort by billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk to scale back the size of the federal government,” the publication added.
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The sale of the VOA headquarters comes as legal battles continue to play out over the future of the agency. A federal judge temporarily paused the administration’s defunding plan, but an appeals court later allowed Trump to withhold funding while a group of VOA journalists challenge their firings.
Senior adviser Kari Lake called the 15-year lease negotiated by the Biden administration last year “obscenely expensive” when she cancelled it in March, according to Bloomberg.
In recent weeks, other government-owned buildings have been put up for sale, including federal courthouses in Los Angeles and Cleveland, a Food Safety and Inspection Service lab in St. Louis, and the Housing and Urban Development headquarters in Washington.