Statement by plaintiffs in Widakuswara v. Lake

Plaintiffs give an update on their lawsuit to restore VOA journalism

February 12, 2026

After Congress passed a bill in February funding VOA and President Donald Trump signed it into law, the plaintiffs in Widakuswara v. Lake urged for the full restoration of VOA’s global broadcasts and for the independence of its journalism.

“We’re grateful that lawmakers want to continue to fund VOA. We hope that money is used to fully restore VOA operations and ensure that we return to our independent journalism because if we model VOA after state media such as Russia Today and China Global Television Network, we would lose our audience,” said Patsy Widakuswara and Jessica Jerreat.

The plaintiffs said that their lawsuit has always been not just about saving VOA jobs, but also about saving its journalism.

“We have lost most, if not all, of our audience. And even more alarming, much of VOA’s current content reflects primarily the administration’s point of view. That is not our mandate,” they said.

On February 12, lawyers for the plaintiffs responded to federal Judge Royce Lamberth’s request for information on the significance of the Congressional appropriation of funding for USAGM and VOA. In a filing, they argued “Congress’s decision to once again appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars to USAGM and VOA confirms what Plaintiffs have been saying all along: restoring USAGM’s and VOA’s operation to its status before Defendants took their illegal action is imperative and legally required.”