The Trump administration has failed to disburse congressionally approved funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the news network originally set up to counter Soviet propaganda during the Cold War, despite a judge’s order to keep it operating, according to court filings and officials at the news organization.
The news group, known as RFE/RL, has not received nearly $12 million for its April funding from the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federal entity overseeing it. The unusual delay in the disbursement has forced the news organization, which relies almost exclusively on congressional funding, to furlough some of its staff and cut parts of its programming.
“We hope that U.S.A.G.M. sends our April funds immediately,” Benjamin Herman, the general counsel of the news group, said in a statement. “Our journalists across Europe and Asia, who assume enormous risk to work for RFE/RL, rely on the timely disbursement of these congressionally appropriated funds.”
The U.S. Agency for Global Media also canceled satellite contracts for RFE/RL on Thursday, potentially hampering the delivery of Russian-language programs from the news outlet, according to two RFE/RL officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matters related to an ongoing lawsuit. Around 40 partner stations in Europe that broadcast Radio Free Europe’s live programs in Russian rely on satellites.
In March, a federal judge in Washington temporarily halted President Trump’s efforts to shut down the news organization, ruling that his administration cannot unilaterally close a news group that Congress established by law. The judge, Royce C. Lamberth of the Federal District Count in Washington, wrote that “the continued operation of RFE/RL is in the public interest.”
But Marney L. Cheek, a lawyer representing the news group, said in a court filing on Monday that Trump officials “have refused to commit to disbursing RFE/RL’s congressionally appropriated funds for April 2025.”
The inaction seems to be at odds with a letter that the global media agency sent to the news organization two days after the court order, which rescinded its previous directive terminating its grant funding.
Kari Lake, a Trump-appointed special adviser at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, said in a statement on Thursday that the administration had not disbursed the funding in an effort to increase oversight and ensure accountability.
“RFE/RL is one of many grantees funded by U.S. Agency for Global Media through congressional appropriations,” said Ms. Lake, a local news anchor and a former candidate for Arizona senator and governor who frequently attacked journalists in her campaigns.
“Like other agencies, U.S.A.G.M. has uncovered notable waste, fraud and abuse among its grantees,” she said, without providing any evidence. “The agency is diligently enhancing oversight while legally confronting those demanding unrestricted taxpayer money without accountability.”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was founded in the 1950s as an American intelligence operation covertly financed through the C.IA. The broadcaster sought to foment anti-communist dissent in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Since the early 1970s, it has been funded by Congress and has had editorial independence. Today, RFE/RL reports in nearly 30 languages, reaching 47 million people every week in 23 countries, including Afghanistan, Russia and Hungary. The news organization is an independent nonprofit that receives nearly all of its financing from the federal government.
“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,” Stephen Capus, the president of the news organization, said in a statement on Tuesday. He vowed that the news outlet would “stay in court” until the Trump administration disburse all funds Congress approved through spending bills.
RFE/RL still provides some coverage, since it can rely on savings from previous rounds of funding as an entity separate from the federal government.
That is unlike Voice of America, which is a federal agency whose journalists are government employees. The journalists at Voice of America, including its director, were put on indefinite leave by Mr. Trump’s executive order and are challenging that move in court. Last week, a federal judge temporarily halted the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle Voice of America, but it has not resumed operations and most of its employees and contractors remain on leave.
