The Trump administration has not distributed funding approved by Congress for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, even after a judge ordered that officials keep the network in operation, court filings reveal.
The network was initially established to set the record straight on propaganda emanating from the Soviet Union. It hasn’t received almost $12 million in funding for April from the federal agency overseeing the network, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, according to The New York Times.
The delay in financing has forced the news organization to furlough some staff and cut some programs.
The group’s general counsel, Benjamin Herman, said in a statement to The Times: “We hope that USAGM sends our April funds immediately.”
“Our journalists across Europe and Asia, who assume enormous risk to work for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), rely on the timely disbursement of these congressionally appropriated funds,” he added.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media also ended RFE/RL satellite contracts on Thursday, possibly impeding the broadcasting of Russian-language programs, two RFE/RL officials told The Times. Around 40 stations in Europe that broadcast RFE’s live Russian programs use satellites.
Last month, a Washington federal judge paused President Donald Trump’s shutdown efforts, in a ruling stating that the administration can’t close a news organization established by Congress.
“The continued operation of RFE/RL is in the public interest,” Judge Royce Lamberth wrote.
An attorney for the news organization said in a Monday court filing that the Trump administration has “refused to commit to disbursing RFE/RL’s congressionally appropriated funds for April 2025.”
Two days after the court order, the federal global media agency sent a letter to the news organization, backtracking on its previous order ending the funding.
Special adviser to the media agency and failed Arizona gubernatorial and Senate candidate Kari Lake said in a statement that the administration had not distributed the funding in an attempt to boost oversight and accountability. Lake is a former TV news anchor who attacked journalists during her campaigns.
“RFE/RL is one of many grantees funded by the U.S. Agency for Global Media through congressional appropriations,” she was quoted byThe Times.
“Like other agencies, USAGM has uncovered notable waste, fraud, and abuse among its grantees,” she claimed, without sharing any evidence to back up her assertion.
She added: “The agency is diligently enhancing oversight while legally confronting those demanding unrestricted taxpayer money without accountability.”
Founded in the 1950s, RFE/RL was a U.S. intelligence operation secretly funded by the CIA, seeking to promote anti-communist discord in Russia and Eastern Europe. However, it has been funded by Congress since the early 1970s, and it has since had editorial independence.
RFE/RL reports in almost 30 languages and reaches about 47 million people weekly in 23 countries, such as Russia, Hungary, and Afghanistan.
The network’s president, Stephen Capus, said in a statement Tuesday: “For more than seven decades, RFE/RL has been a vital U.S. national security asset, fighting censorship to bring news to millions of people in the world’s most repressive societies.”
He added that the organization would remain in court until the Trump officials distribute the funding allocated by Congress, as the court has ruled.
