A federal appeals court has upheld an order that bars the U.S. Agency for Global Media from removing Voice of America director Michael Abramowitz without approval from the International Broadcasting Advisory Board. The Nov. 10 ruling leaves in place an August 2025 injunction. The case turns on who has authority over the job when the agency’s leadership and the board are separate.
Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote the opinion for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The panel held that the lower court had authority to hear the case, that the statutory requirements were consistent with Article II of the Constitution and that the lower court could block the attempted termination. The opinion says six of the board’s seven seats remain vacant.
Who has a vote on network leadership
The agency’s chief executive oversees the federal broadcaster’s operations. Congress gave a different body the power to approve the appointment or removal of network heads. Under 22 U.S.C. § 6205, a network head can be appointed or removed through the ordinary process only with approval by a majority vote of the advisory board. The board also has its own route to remove a network head. At least five members must vote for removal after consulting the agency’s chief executive. The court found that the agency had no approval for its action against Abramowitz.
The president nominates six members, subject to Senate confirmation. The secretary of state holds the seventh seat. Four members other than the secretary are needed for a quorum. The government argued that dividing removal authority across the board effectively insulated Abramowitz. The court said the president retains oversight of the board and that replacing members can take time because their appointments require Senate confirmation.
Congress strengthened the board after a 2020 dispute over unilateral firings at the agency, the opinion says. It gave the seven-member body responsibilities that include advising the chief executive on the broadcasters’ editorial independence and reporting to Congress. The court described that division of duties as a safeguard for the networks’ credibility. The ruling applies the statutory approval requirement to this removal. It leaves the legal avenues for an authorized removal in place.
How Abramowitz’s case reached the appeals court
The board unanimously approved Abramowitz’s appointment in April 2024, according to the opinion. President Donald Trump fired six board members after taking office in January 2025. In March, he directed the agency to eliminate its nonstatutory work to the extent the law allowed. Agency officials then placed Abramowitz and about 1,300 other Voice of America employees on administrative leave.
The court says the agency notified Abramowitz in July 2025 that it planned to reassign him to a chief management officer job in Greenville, North Carolina. The notice warned that he would lose the director position if he declined. He did decline, and the agency sent him an Aug. 1 letter saying it had decided to remove him. The board lacked a quorum at the time. The district court ruled that the attempted removal without approval violated the law and issued the injunction on Aug. 28, 2025.
The ruling covers the director’s job
Voice of America began during World War II and provides U.S.-funded news abroad. In this case, the issue before the appeals court was the permanent order protecting the director from removal without the required vote. The opinion discusses related litigation over Voice of America programming, including a separate order directing the agency to restore programming. The court did not decide a broadcast schedule, the status of individual staff members or how much programming the network would produce in this appeal.
The opinion gives no date for the advisory board to regain a quorum. It also gives no date for a programming change. An announcement from the service or an order in the programming case would address what listeners can hear.
