The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed an injunction on 10 November barring the Agency for Global Media from removing Voice of America director Michael Abramowitz without approval from the International Broadcasting Advisory Board.
The effect is that Abramowitz remains in post unless a majority of the Broadcasting Board approves his removal, as the district court ordered on 28 August 2025. Six of the board’s seven seats remain empty, the court noted.
Judge Pillard wrote the opinion for a panel that also included Chief Judge Srinivasan and Judge Pan. The appeal was argued on 23 April.
The court held that the district court had jurisdiction, that the statutory requirements are consistent with Article II of the US Constitution, and that the district court had equitable power to enjoin the removal.
It concluded that section 6205(e) of title 22 of the US Code is constitutionally valid, so the attempted removal was contrary to law under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).
The appellants, Kari Lake in her official capacity as senior adviser to the acting chief executive of the agency, and others, argued that Congress had channelled the claim to the Merit Systems Protection Board under the Civil Service Reform Act. The court rejected that argument.
Viewed from “30,000 feet”, it said, the case is “not very hard”, and Congress “gave no hint that it intended the CSRA to channel a section 6205(e) claim like Abramowitz’s to the MSPB for resolution.”
The court said section 6205(e) “is not a standard employment law, but a durable barrier against any breach of the firewall protecting the journalistic integrity of Voice of America and the affiliate networks.”
It added that the Merit Systems Protection Board lacks power to award preliminary relief, and that any remedy available through the Civil Service Reform Act would come too late to serve the purpose of the statute.
On remedy, the panel said the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Cook, 609 U.S. 528 (2026), “reinforces our precedent”. It found no basis to disturb the district court’s finding that Abramowitz had made the showings needed for a permanent injunction.
The court also relied on Trump v. Slaughter, 609 U.S. 422 (2026), in which it said the Supreme Court announced that the president may remove his subordinates at will from principal officer positions. It reasoned that because the Broadcasting Board is subject to at-will presidential removal, Abramowitz is effectively subject to the same.
The statute and the earlier steps in the case
Congress converted the advisory board into a separate, independent agency in 2021, after the agency’s then chief executive, Michael Pack, “unilaterally fired the heads of several networks” in 2020. The reformed board has seven members requiring Senate confirmation.
Under the statute, network heads “may only be appointed or removed if such action has been approved by a majority vote of the [Broadcasting] Board”. The board may itself remove a head by a vote of five or more of its seven members.
Abramowitz was appointed in April 2024 with the unanimous approval of the board. After taking office in January 2025, President Trump fired six of the seven board members and issued an executive order directing that the agency’s non-statutory components and functions be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.
The defendants placed Abramowitz and about 1,300 other Voice of America employees on indefinite administrative leave. Abramowitz and three journalists sued and obtained preliminary injunctions, which a divided panel of the D.C. Circuit stayed in part before the full court largely lifted the stay.
In July 2025, with the board without a quorum, the defendants told Abramowitz he would be reassigned to a Chief Management Officer role in Greenville, North Carolina, or be removed. In a letter dated 1 August 2025 they said they had decided to remove him after he did not accept.
The district court then granted partial summary judgment on his Administrative Procedure Act claim and entered the permanent injunction. The appeals court also denied the defendants a stay pending appeal.
Elizabeth Hedges of the US Department of Justice argued for the appellants. William Schultz argued for Abramowitz.