A veteran conservative judge shredded Donald Trump’s handpicked propaganda goon for her illegal tenure at a public service broadcasting agency and ordered everyone she fired to be given their jobs back.
Royce Lamberth, a D.C. district judge appointed under President Ronald Reagan, issued a withering ruling Monday tearing into the administration’s “flagrant and nearly year-long refusal” to abide by the law at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, singling out its former acting chief Kari Lake for particular criticism.
“The defendants’ persistent omission and withholding of key information in this case has been a Hallmark production in bad faith,” the judge wrote. He further ruled that more than 1,000 employees at Voice of America—which the agency oversees, and who have now spent an entire year on paid administrative leave—be allowed to return to work.
Lake, 56, who has twice run and twice failed to secure office on a Republican ticket in her home state of Arizona, is a MAGA stalwart and veteran conspiracy theorist who has backed Trump’s claims of election rigging in 2020.
VOA employees sued Lake over her efforts to gut USAGM—which Lake has described as the “most corrupt agency in Washington”—by reducing its staff from more than a thousand down to just 68 and scaling back its infrastructure in an effort to shrink the outlet to the “statutory minimum” under its congressional mandate.
![Lake told Stanton during the House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing.that lies “could be broadcast today on [Voice of America] and there's nothing that could be done about it."](https://www.thedailybeast.com/resizer/v2/2466MMPYCJHGHHUK7NENJOOAAU.jpg?auth=b4754c208b7b76e60d8da98dfd6f31c846a375dbf3e0def622ba311016cdbabb&width=800&height=533)
Lamberth, 82, ruled earlier this month that because the Senate had not confirmed Lake—whom he repeatedly threatened with contempt proceedings—her tenure was illegal and the changes she oversaw were void.
Lake said she would appeal the judge’s rulings but has not yet filed a motion to do so. The VOA employees have trumpeted Lamberth’s latest decision and said they are looking forward to getting back to work.
“We are eager to begin repairing the damage Kari Lake has inflicted on our agency and our colleagues, to return to our congressional mandate, and to rebuild the trust of the global audience we have been unable to serve for the past year,” they wrote in a statement.
The Daily Beast has contacted Lake and USAGM for comment on this story.
