“Judge Roys Lamber stated in his decision made on July 18 that USAGM has to pay RFE/RL the rest of the funds allocated by Congress for the 2025 Financial Year”, – WRITE: www.radiosvoboda.org
Judge Roys Lambert from the District Court of Columbia District, stated in his decision on July 18 that USAGM has to pay RFE/RL the rest of the funds allocated by Congress for the 2025 financial year, having concluded that the agency is in favor of violates the legislation.
“As far as the court is known, it is an unprecedented case when the agency requires that completely new conditions regulate its ten-year working relations with the granting organization, and then ceases to respond, especially when the agency is obliged to provide annual appropriations of Congress with the law,” he wrote.
The threat of the broadcaster was caused by a wave of global support from the media surveyors, analysts and defenders of democracy, as well as the audience in 27 languages and in 23 countries, which speaks RFE/RL.
In his decision, Lambert noted that “the flashy of USAGM neglect by its financing responsibilities” led to “mass exemptions, cancellation of programs and the inevitable damage to the global impact, which RFE/RL has created for decades.”
Radio Liberty President, Stephen Capus, said in a statement that this decision is “the culmination of continuous legal efforts to force USAGM to allocate the funding necessary to fulfill the RFE/RL vital mission.”
“This victory provides our journalists with a momentum, needed to continue to bring information to almost 47 million people every week who rely on our journalism in finding facts and resisting the malicious propaganda of authoritarian governments,” he said.
“Now, as ever, we cannot give the information space to tyrants,” Kapus added, noting that with this decision “RFE/RL can continue to promote the interests of US national security.”
USAGM is an independent US Government Agency, which oversees news and information broadcasting more than 60 languages for more than 400 million people every week.
According to USAGM documents, the budget request for 2025 for RFE/RL was about $ 153 million.
Radio Liberty is a private, independent international information organization whose programs cover the audience every week almost 50 million people in 23 countries, including Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Republic of Central Asia and the Caucasus. Funded by the US Congress through the US Agency with Global Media (USAGM).
On March 14, 2025, US President Donald Trump signed a decree reducing the activities of seven state agencies, including USAGM, and the Radio Liberty organization. Thereafter, it was reported to terminate the US Congress approved by the Grant, which funds Radio Liberty and the freezing of about $ 75 million, already allocated to finance the activities of the Media Corporation Congress for the current financial year – by the end of September 2025.
This decision was made by the USAGM temporary management on the basis of Trump decree, which orders to eliminate the inefficient spending of US taxpayers’ funds.
Radio Liberty, which began the judicial fight against USAGM, continued broadcasting and publications, but took decisive measures to reduce expenses, including sending hundreds of employees to partially paid vacations and limiting work with freelancers.