Voice of America director fired for refusing to accept ‘illegal' demotion
In a letter sent to Abramowitz on Friday, which was included in a court filing on Monday, US Agency for Global Media senior advisor John Zadrozny informed the director that he would be terminated at the end of the month.
'I am proposing that your failure to accept a directed geographic reassignment warrants removal from your position for such cause as to promote the efficiency of the Federal service,' Zadrozny wrote. The USAGM is the agency that oversees VOA.
Much like other staffers at Voice of America, Abramowitz is suing the Trump administration over the president's executive order that dismantles the USAGM. As his case has continued to move forward in federal court, Kari Lake – the MAGA loyalist whom Trump has installed to manage USAGM – has sidelined hundreds of VOA employees while effectively shuttering the network.
After sending the vast majority of Voice of America staff reduction-in-force notices in June, however, Lake rescinded the layoffs a week later after staff encountered errors in the documents. Employees were informed at the time that USAGM would be 'running another RIF in the near future.' Meanwhile, most of the staff remain on administrative leave, though some have been recalled to active duty.
According to Abramowitz's court filing this week, Lake ordered him on July 8 to accept a transfer to manage the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station in Greenville or face termination. Abramowitz noted that he had sent a response later that month refusing the reassignment as it did not appear to be lawful, noting that the acting CEO of USAGM had been placed on leave and Trump had dismantled the board that approves such moves.
'This notice, which would remove me from my position as Director of Voice of America on September 6, 2025 or potentially before that if I refuse the transfer, is illegal,' he wrote in a July 29 letter. 'Under the law, I can only be removed from my position as director of VOA with the approval of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board. No such action has been taken.'
In response to Abramowitz's refusal to accept the demotion, Zadrozny told him on Friday that he was fired due to a 'failure to accept directed geographic reassignment,' something Abramowitz's attorney noted in the court filing was ironic.
'Right in the middle of litigation about Defendants' willingness to follow the law, they are firing Director Abramowitz for refusing to accept a reassignment because he insisted that Defendants follow the law,' the lawyer wrote.
Abramowitz also noted that the reassignment to the low-level post appeared to be nonsensical based on the reasons the USAGM laid out.
'In addition, the August 1 letter claims that 'it was indicated that your presence in Greenville was needed to support an evaluation of the potential for an expanded USAGM staff presence at that facility.' This purported rationale does not make sense,' he stated.
'I understand that Defendants have indicated that they only plan to broadcast in four languages at VOA (Mandarin, Farsi, Pashto and Dari),' Abramowitz added. 'But the Greenville station, which has historically provided shortwave radio broadcasts mainly to West Africa and Latin America, does not serve countries that speak any of those languages.'
The USAGM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the lawsuit brought by other VOA staffers against the government over Trump's executive order, a federal judge excoriated Lake and other White House officials for 'failing to show that they had been abiding by his ruling' that mandated a restoration of VOA programming.
'The Court concludes that judicial intervention is needed to ensure the defendants' compliance with the preliminary injunction,' Judge Royce Lamberth wrote last week, adding that the administration officials 'appear to be violating numerous statutory provisions' and have been 'providing misleading and contradictory information.'
In recent months, Lake has occasionally deployed a skeleton crew to VOA offices, providing minimal broadcasting services and news programming in an apparent effort to comply with the court's ruling. Lamberth, meanwhile, noted in his latest court order that Lake was doing the exact opposite of what she claimed her intent was, which was to get rid of 'wasteful' spending at VOA.
'When Congress appropriated $260 million to VOA.,' Lamberth wrote, referencing the 2025 budget for Voice of America. 'It did not anticipate that such a significant sum of taxpayer funds would be used to pay employees to sit at home for months on end, making no contribution to VOA's statutory mandate. The legal term for that is 'waste,' and it is precisely what federal appropriation law aims to avoid.'
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