Judge orders Trump administration to restore $12 million for
pro-democracy Radio Free Europe
[April 30, 2025]
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump
administration to restore $12 million that Congress appropriated for
Radio Free Europe, a pro-democracy media outlet at risk of going dark
for the first time in 75 years.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth also tucked a lesson on the three
branches of government inside Tuesday's ruling, cautioning that the
system of checks and balances established by the U.S. Constitution must
remain intact if the nation is going to continue to thrive.
Lamberth granted the temporary restraining order for the U.S. Agency for
Global Media to disburse money for April 2025 for Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty pending the outcome of a lawsuit seeking to keep
the station on the air. He said the Trump administration could not
unilaterally revoke funding approved by Congress.
“In interviews, podcasts, and op-eds, people from both inside and
outside government have variously accused the courts — myself included —
of fomenting a constitutional crisis, usurping the Article II powers of
the Presidency, undercutting the popular will, or dictating how
Executive agencies can and should be run,” wrote Lamberth, who was
appointed by President Ronald Reagan.
Those notions reflect a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the role of
the federal judiciary and of the Constitution itself, he said.
“Reasonable people can reach different conclusions in complicated legal
disputes such as this,” Lamberth wrote, and that's why the appellate
courts exist. The administration could also ask Congress to pull back
the funds, he noted.
Attorneys for the media outlet say President Donald Trump’s
administration has terminated nearly all of its contracts with freelance
journalists, missed payments on leases and furloughed 122 employees.
They warn that more employees will be furloughed and more contracts will
be canceled on May 1 if funding isn’t restored.
“By the end of May, RFE/RL will be forced to cancel the contracts
supporting its core live news broadcasting and reporting operations. In
June 2025, RFE/RL will almost entirely cease its operations,”
plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote.
Government attorneys argued that the judge doesn’t have jurisdiction
over what amounts to a contract dispute that belongs in the Court of
Federal Claims.
“Plaintiff seeks to place this Court as the arbiter of the grant
agreement terms between the parties. But doing so would put the Court in
an improper policymaking role,” they wrote.
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The headquarters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is seen with the
United States flag in the foreground, Jan. 15, 2010, in Prague.
(Michal Kamaryt/CTK via AP, File)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty started broadcasting during the Cold
War. Its programs are aired in 27 languages in 23 countries across
Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. Its corporate
headquarters are in Washington; its journalistic headquarters are
based in the Czech Republic.
The Trump administration has tried to make deep cuts at other
government-operated, pro-democracy media outlets, including Voice of
America.
On April 22, however, Lamberth agreed to block the administration
from dismantling Voice of America. The judge ruled that the
administration illegally required Voice of America to cease
operations for the first time since its World War II-era inception.
Congress makes the laws, but they must be signed by the president to
take effect, Lamberth wrote in Tuesday's ruling, and that's exactly
what happened in March when Trump signed the continuing resolution
that allocated the grant funding to the government-operated media
outlets.
Federal judges take an oath to render their decisions impartially,
and Lamberth said he doesn't have a stake in the outcome of this
case. He also said he doesn't have any animosity toward the
president nor loyalty to the media outlets.
But the role of the courts is to interpret the laws of the
Constitution and declare what the law is, he said — and unlike the
executive branch, the courts have no means to independently enforce
those laws.
By issuing the ruling, “I am humbly fulfilling my small part in this
very constitutional paradigm – a framework that has propelled the
United States to heights of greatness, liberty and prosperity
unparalleled in the history of the world for nearly 250 years,”
Lamberth wrote. "If our nation is to thrive for another 250 years,
each co-equal branch of government must be willing to courageously
exert the authority entrusted to it by our Founders.”
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Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Rebecca Boone
contributed to this story.
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