Radio Free Europe sues Trump admin, Kari Lake over defunding

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the U.S.-funded news outlet created to reach people living under communism during the Cold War, is suing Kari Lake and the Trump administration over efforts to defund the organization. 

The lawsuit, filed in a Washington D.C. federal court, said the station has not been paid a $7.5 million invoice submitted Monday. It claims the funding freeze undermines Congress’s purse strings. Both entities are funded by government grants, with around 1% coming from private donations and other sources, the lawsuit states. 

“Whether to disburse funds as directed by appropriations laws, and whether to make those funds available through grants as directed by the International Broadcasting Act, is not an optional choice for the agency to make,”  the lawsuit said. “It is the law. Urgent relief is needed to compel the agency to follow the law.”

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If funding doesn’t resume, the station will be forced to lay off employees that work to bring news coverage to 23 countries in Europe and Asia in 27 languages.  

“This is not the time to cede terrain to the propaganda and censorship of America’s adversaries,” RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said in a statement. We believe the law is on our side and that the celebration of our demise by despots around the world is premature.”

The lawsuit names U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), Victor Morales, the acting USAGM CEO, and Kari Lake, a former television anchor in Arizona who later ran for governor and senator who serves as a senior advisor to Morales, as defendants. 

The lawsuit came days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to eliminate USAGM. 

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Leaders in Europe have warned that Radio Free Europe could struggle to find funding to replace the cuts made by Trump. 

On Monday, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky urged European Union ministers at a meeting in Brussels to consider ways to allow the Prague-based service to continue. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called Radio Free Europe “a beacon of democracy” and said it was sad that the U.S. had decided to cut its funding, Reuters reported. 

“Can we come in with our funding to … fill the void that U.S. is leaving? The answer to that question is … not automatically, because we have a lot of organizations who are coming with the same request to us,” she told reporters.

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Radio Free Europe began broadcasting in 1950 to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, all countries that were behind the Iron Curtain. Radio Liberty started broadcasting to the Soviet Union in 1953. 

Both entities were alternative news sources to the media controlled by the Soviet Union and other communist governments.