A U.S. court has granted Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) a temporary injunction in its lawsuit against the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). The lawsuit was filed due to the agency’s failure to provide RFE/RL with funds approved by the U.S. Congress.
Judge Rules Against USAGM’s Withholding of Funds
Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on July 18 that USAGM must disburse the remaining funds approved by Congress for fiscal year 2025 to RFE/RL. He concluded that the agency’s conditioning of funds on new grant terms, as well as its failure to negotiate in good faith with RFE/RL, constituted a violation of the law.
“According to the information before this Court, it is unprecedented for an agency to seek entirely new conditions to govern its decades-long relationship with a grant recipient entity and then cease communication, especially when the agency is obligated by law to annually provide Congressionally approved funds to that specific entity,” Judge Lamberth wrote.
The threat to withhold funding from the broadcaster had triggered a wave of global support from media watchdog organizations, analysts, democracy advocates, and audiences across the 27 languages and 23 countries where RFE/RL broadcasts.
Impact on RFE/RL’s Operations and Mission
Judge Lamberth noted in his decision that USAGM’s “blatant disregard for its funding obligations” forced RFE/RL “to place employees on administrative leave, cancel programs, and caused inevitable damage to the global impact RFE/RL has built for decades.”
Steve Capus, President and CEO of RFE/RL, stated that this decision is the “culmination of tireless legal efforts to compel USAGM to release the funds necessary to fulfill RFE/RL’s vital mission.”
“This victory gives our journalists the necessary impetus to continue reaching nearly 47 million people every week, who rely on our journalism for facts and to counter the malicious propaganda of authoritarian governments,” he declared. “Now more than ever, we cannot let tyrants own the information space,” Capus added, emphasizing that with this decision, “RFE/RL can continue to advance U.S. national security interests.”
About USAGM and Its Budget
USAGM is an independent U.S. government agency that oversees the broadcasting of news and information in over 60 languages to more than 400 million people weekly. The overall budget requested for USAGM for fiscal year 2025 was $950 million, intended to finance all of the agency’s operations and capital investments. This includes media entities such as RFE/RL, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio Martí), the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), and the Open Technology Fund. According to USAGM documents, the budget request for RFE/RL for 2025 was approximately $153 million.
