D.C. Circuit Holds USAGM Officials Lacked Authority to Fire VOA Director Without Advisory Board Approval

Status: The D.C. Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a permanent injunction entered Aug. 28, 2025, by Judge Royce C. Lamberth. The clerk withheld the mandate. The administration may seek rehearing en banc or Supreme Court review.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held Tuesday that officials of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, including Kari Lake, lacked authority to fire Voice of America Director Michael Abramowitz without approval from the International Broadcasting Advisory Board. Judge Nina Pillard wrote the opinion in Abramowitz v. Lake, No. 25-5314, joined by Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Florence Pan. The caption identifies Lake as senior advisor to the acting CEO of the agency. Bloomberg Law described her as the agency's leader.

The court affirmed Lamberth's injunction. In the opinion, the defendants conceded that they removed Abramowitz in violation of 22 U.S.C. § 6205(e), which requires majority board approval (or, in a second pathway, a vote of five or more board members after consulting the agency CEO). Their defense was that those procedures "violate Article II." The panel rejected that argument, holding that "section 6205(e) is constitutionally valid, so defendants' attempt to remove Abramowitz was contrary to law."

The administration also argued that Abramowitz's challenge should have been funneled to the Merit Systems Protection Board. The court disagreed. The statute, Pillard wrote, "is not a standard employment law, but a durable barrier against any breach of the firewall protecting the journalistic integrity of Voice of America and the affiliate networks."

The court addressed the Supreme Court's recent expansion of presidential removal power, including Trump v. Slaughter (2026), which said "the President may remove his subordinates at will" from principal-officer posts. Pillard wrote that the court need not decide whether that rule applies to inferior officers such as the VOA director because, in any event, "section 6205 secures the President's ability to remove Abramowitz for any or no reason—albeit more indirectly than defendants would like." The president can remove members of the board at will, the opinion said, and then use the board to effect a removal, though that path may involve delay because new board members require Senate confirmation.

Bloomberg Law reported that Abramowitz has remained on administrative leave. The D.C. Circuit had earlier temporarily barred the administration from firing him while the case proceeded. The clerk's Nov. 10 order withheld issuance of the mandate.

The opinion is a RECAP copy of the court's Nov. 10 filing. The D.C. Circuit's public opinions page listed the case among Tuesday's releases; the court's document server did not return the file when AFNS requested it directly.