Kari Lake sharply criticized a federal judge’s decision finding she unlawfully served as acting chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media and that many actions she took during that period, including massive layoffs, were not legally valid.
In a statement on X posted after the opinion was issued, she called it a “bogus ruling by an activist judge” and said President Donald Trump had a mandate to cut what she described as “bloated bureaucracy,” eliminate waste, and restore accountability in government. She also accused Judge Royce Lamberth of a pattern of activist rulings.
In an opinion on March 7, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court said that Lake’s service as CEO of the USAGM was in violation of both the Vacancies Reform Act and the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. According to the court memorandum opinion, this is because Lake was not qualified to serve as CEO. She was not the first assistant at the USAGM at the time she took over. She was not Senate-confirmed for any other government agency. She had not been at the agency long enough before she took over.
The judge rejected a fallback argument that Lake could exercise CEO powers through delegations from then-acting CEO Victor Morales. Lamberth wrote that the delegations were an unlawful effort to make Lake the agency’s chief executive “in all but name” and said the Vacancies Act bars that kind of workaround.
In his decision, Judge Lamberth stated that Lake had actually executed almost all of the authority granted by law to the CEO. She had even executed the reduction in force notices affecting hundreds of employees. However, the Vacancies Reform Act declared that if Lake had illegally executed that authority, it “shall have no force or effect.”
The ruling marks another legal setback in the long-running fight over the future of Voice of America and its parent agency.
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