The Trump administration has moved to terminate more than 500 employees at the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the federal body that oversees government funded broadcasters.
The majority of those fired were employees of Voice of America (VOA), the US-backed outlet that President Donald Trump has pledged to close down.
Acting CEO Kari Lake said the decision would “help reduce the federal bureaucracy, improve agency service, and save the American people more of their hard-earned money.” Staff members have described the layoffs as “abhorrent”.
VOA was set up during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda, and has become a major global media broadcaster.
The move marks the Trump administration’s latest attempt to gut the outlet. In June, Lake announced 639 employees would be terminated, although the notices were later rescinded due to paperwork errors. Some employees also filed lawsuits to block the terminations.
In court filings on Thursday, lawyers for the agency said it planned to layoff 486 VOA staff and 46 USAGM staff. That would leave 108 employees at VOA, and 158 at USAGM.
The announcement late on Friday night came a day after a judge ruled the Trump administration had not followed proper procedures in its attempt to fire VOA’s director, Michael Abramowitz. The judge also ordered Lake to sit for a deposition, where she would be questioned by lawyers.
The lawsuit was brought by a group of agency employees trying to block attempts to close down VOA.
“We find Lake’s continued attacks on our agency abhorrent,” they said in a statement to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.
“We are looking forward to her deposition to hear whether her plan to dismantle VOA was done with the rigorous review process that Congress requires. So far we have not seen any evidence of that, and as such we will continue to fight for what we believe to be our rights under the law.”
Most of VOA’s journalists have been on administrative leave since March but some Farsi-speaking staff were called back as war between Israel and Iran broke out this summer.
The notices will also not affect journalists working in its Office of Cuba Broadcasting division, which broadcasts news in Spanish from Miami.
Critics say Trump’s attempts to strip back VOA amount to an attack on press freedom, and impacts America’s ability to exercise soft power abroad. The administration has accused the outlet of being “anti-Trump” and “radical”.
VOA broadcasts TV, radio and digital content in almost 50 languages.
