An appeals court has unanimously ruled that federal officials acting on orders of the Trump administration did not have the legal authority to fire the head of Voice of America (VOA).
“Congress empowered a separate agency, the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, with final authority over the hiring and firing of the broadcasters’ heads-of-network,” the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found in its Nov. 10 ruling.
Tuesday’s ruling upholds an earlier district court decision by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth.
Michael Abramowitz sued after leaders of the Agency for Global Media, including then-senior adviser Kari Lake and then-acting CEO Victor Morales, placed him on administrative leave in March 2025.
That agency supervises VOA, along with other pro-American international broadcasting outlets such as Radio Free Europe and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
The Global Media CEO used to have the power to fire heads of any of those broadcasters, but that changed in 2021, when Congress turned the agency’s advisory board, the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, into a separate entity and gave it oversight authority.
In addition to advisory power, Congress gave the board the ability to fire the heads of broadcasters under the control of Global Media. If Global Media’s CEO makes the request, the board can do so by a majority vote. If the board wants to fire a broadcasting head on its own, it requires approval from five of its seven members.
When President Donald Trump reclaimed office in January 2025, he fired six out of seven board members and followed up with an executive order mandating that several agencies have their functions “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
The move was part of Trump’s broader effort to reduce the federal bureaucracy.
Abramowitz was placed on indefinite administrative leave, along with around 1,300 other employees. In August 2025, after he refused a reassignment to a new role in Greenville, North Carolina, he was fired.
The Trump administration argued that Abramowitz had no right to sue in federal court, and instead should have brought his claim before the Merit Systems Protection Board, which normally handles suits by federal employees.
The appeals court disagreed, finding that when Congress passed the law giving the Advisory Board control over hiring and firing of broadcast companies’ directors, it allowed them to sue in federal court.
The Merit Systems Protection Board does not have the power to let the VOA director keep his job, but a district court does, the D.C. Circuit ruled.
The administration admitted it violated that law, the ruling said, but claimed the law itself was unconstitutional, and interfered with the president’s “unrestricted removal power.”
The D.C. Circuit noted that Article II allows Congress to give appointment powers to “the President alone,” but also to “Heads of Departments,” as it did with the Advisory Board.
It also said Trump still has removal power, “albeit more indirectly than defendants would like.”
Since Trump has power to fire members of the Advisory Board itself, the ruling said, he can “transitively control” Abramowitz’s position.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House and Abramowitz through Voice of America for comment.
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