The Trump administration terminated nearly 600 contractors at Voice of America, a government-funded news network, amounting to more than a third of the staff, The Desk reported.
The move came weeks after a U.S. district judge blocked the White House from dismantling the VOA until a lawsuit filed by American Federation of Government Employees (AGFE) and other unions for illegally shutting down the congressionally mandated agency was settled.
Patsy Widakuswara, VOA's White House bureau chief and one of the lead plaintiffs in the employees' lawsuit against senior presidential adviser Kari Lake and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, told Politico the plaintiffs and the legal team "will fight this in court for as long as it takes. Until there is no more fight left."
Michael Abramowitz, the director of Voice of America, in an email to his staff on Thursday called the firings "inexplicable."
"I am heartbroken," he said.
Lake, a senior adviser at USAGM, which oversees VOA, said the Trump administration acted within its legal authority.
"We are in the process of rightsizing the agency and reducing the federal bureaucracy to meet administration priorities," Lake said in a statement. "We will continue to scale back the bloat at U.S.A.G.M. and make an archaic dinosaur into something worthy of being funded by hardworking Americans."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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