Kari Lake, who oversees the parent agency of the Voice of America, has hit legal and political roadblocks in her drive to dismantle the government-funded broadcaster.
She has instead accelerated her use of the U.S. government-owned network to promote President Trump and his views — in possible violation of federal law and policies.
To mark the completion of Trump's first year in office last week, Lake was interviewed on Voice of America's Persian-language service through an interpreter. During the five-minute segment, she praised Trump repeatedly.
Lake lauded Trump's actions toward Iran, called him "the president of peace" and reiterated Trump's tenuous claims he had ended eight wars and conflicts.
Lake said Trump was "putting out fires" throughout the world with a policy of "peace through strength." She also castigated judges who ruled against Trump and the administration, citing an "out-of-control judiciary," and she trashed former President Joe Biden's record, which she termed "horrific." NPR reviewed her original remarks in English and the interpretation offered to viewers in Iran, the service's target audience.
"VOA is telling the story of the brave Iranian people and their fight for freedom," Lake says in a written comment to NPR. "That story cannot be told without sharing statements from President Trump or the support the Iranian people have for him."
The segment, part of a glowing one-hour special on Trump's first year back in the White House, was also broadcast on Voice of America's Chinese language service, in which her remarks could be heard in English.
Lake is a familiar pro-Trump guest on such conservative news outlets as Fox, Newsmax and OANN, where she shares baseless claims of election fraud and comments on topics like immigration and Venezuela. None of them have any direct link to her federal job.
Given Lake's role overseeing the parent agency of Voice of America, her appearance last week was a sharp departure for the network.
In separate interviews, 11 current and former Voice of America journalists and officials at its federal parent, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, said they could not recall anything like it. Most spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing professional retribution, given ongoing links to the agency, its broadcasters or the federal government.
By law, the chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media is required to respect what is often called a firewall, designed to shield editorial staffers and their news decisions from politics. Since late July, Lake has periodically fashioned herself as the agency chief, though she is currently signing her official emails as deputy CEO.
Critics say her recent appearance on Voice of America tramples on that firewall.
"These are precisely the reasons why you would have a charter and why you would have to adhere to the highest principles of journalistic ethics — to avoid these kinds of situations," says David Kligerman, the former general counsel of the U.S. Agency for Global Media under both Trump and Biden.
During Trump's first term, Voice of America host Greta Van Susteren interviewed then-Vice President Mike Pence and twice interviewed President Trump during foreign trips, all in 2018. No one objected: Trump and Pence were powerful public officials. The interviews were newsworthy.
Veterans of the agency and Voice of America tell NPR that having their boss on the air in a partisan role is different.
"It seems to contradict the spirit and the sense of the firewall," says Rick Stengel, the former top editor of Time magazine, who sat on the agency's governing board while serving in the U.S. State Department during the Obama administration.
"Listening to Kari Lake, she sounded more like a press secretary for the president than the head of an independent news service," Stengel says. "We never wanted it to sound like a state broadcaster in an authoritarian country that would air hagiographic biographies of the Dear Leader."
After losing elections, Lake rises at broadcast agency
Lake is a former local TV news anchor turned unsuccessful MAGA candidate in Arizona, where she ran for both governor and U.S. Senate and lost. Early last year, Trump installed her atop the U.S. Agency for Global Media. But Lake's ability to lead the agency is being challenged in court.
Before taking office, Trump announced he wanted to name Lake to be the director of the Voice of America.
According to two journalists at the network with knowledge, Voice of America editors were nervous enough about her arrival that they half-jokingly discussed offering Lake her own show in hopes of saving the network from evisceration or being turned into a pro-Trump propaganda channel. (Those people spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.)
Yet Trump does not have the legal authority to appoint the agency's chief executive. That power rests with a bipartisan oversight board whose members are confirmed by the U.S. Senate, under laws designed to insulate the network from political interference.
Upon entering the White House, Trump dismissed the board members. That meant there was no legal way for him to install Lake or anyone else atop Voice of America.
Instead, last March, Trump issued an executive order that the agency be reduced to the bare minimum required by law. He named Lake as senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media. She testified that she held all but five percent of the power the agency's CEO would normally wield.
Lake moved swiftly to lay off 85% of the workforce in response to Trump's executive order. Those staffers have been whipsawed by a series of court rulings that reinstated their jobs, followed by fresh rounds of layoffs.
Last July, the White House named Lake deputy CEO at her own urging, according to her testimony in court.
Lake said in a sworn affidavit that she became acting CEO in late July, though the White House made no formal announcement of it.
Trump has not nominated her to be CEO, which would require confirmation from the U.S. Senate. As NPR has reported, under the law it's not clear she is eligible to hold the position of acting CEO, either.
Neither the U.S. Agency for Global Media nor the White House has responded to NPR's numerous requests for documentation of her appointment as acting CEO. Nor has Lake, for that matter.
U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who is presiding over a series of cases challenging her actions at the agency, has questioned Lake's honesty and the validity of the administration's legal defenses. He has ordered her to bring back enough employees to meet the expectations set by Congress when it put money aside for the agency. He has not yet ruled on the legality of Lake's authority.
Compelled to bring back some VOA journalists, Lake has emphasized the Persian-language service
In recalling some journalists to work, Lake has put a special emphasis on the Persian-language service, given the current upheaval and crackdown in Iran.
Lake's choice to run that service is a veteran former Voice of America journalist, Ali Javanmardi, who left the network in 2019, according to current and former colleagues. Javanmardi also has praised Trump on the air: "Perhaps for the first time," Javanmardi told viewers this month, "the leader of the free world is standing alongside the people of Iran." His X (formerly Twitter) feed and his LinkedIn profile display in the background a photograph of a bloodied but undaunted Trump just after the unsuccessful assassination attempt on his life in Butler, Pa.
Javanmardi has urged editors and producers not to book guests who may be critical of Trump, according to colleagues who spoke on condition they not be named. (They cited fears of workplace retaliation.)
NPR has also reviewed a text from a Voice of America journalist who said the Persian-language service canceled an appearance by a former Trump foreign policy adviser, Elliot Abrams, because he had been critical of the president on Iran. (Abrams did not respond to an email seeking comment.)
In another instance, a journalist for Voice of America Persian told a foreign policy commentator that the network's management could not allow any critique of the president. The commentator declined to appear on air, the text exchange shows.
During the hour-long special on which Lake appeared, Voice of America Persian host Payam Yazdian offered effusive praise of Trump's return to the White House. Yazdian called Trump's first year back "the start of an exciting period of national success, and the return of global respectability."
Additionally, Javanmardi has discouraged coverage of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's last shah, according to two journalists with knowledge of events who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing concerns of professional reprisals.
Pahlavi has become a rallying point for some of those opposed to the current regime, even as the repressive record of Pahlavi's father repels many Iranians and Iranian-Americans.
"Ignoring or sidelining [Pahlavi] is not neutrality, it's an editorial failure," wrote former BBC journalist Ali Hamedani, who runs his own Persian-language radio service in London.
Javanmardi blames the Iranian government for online criticism of his work.
"In my new job at VOA, my primary mission is to ensure it aligns with the US foreign policy and conveys @POTUS's support for the people of Iran," he wrote in a social media post on Jan. 18.
Lake is backing him up.
"We are not in the business of selecting Iran's political leadership. That would be irresponsible of any outside news organization," she writes in the statement to NPR. "That decision belongs solely to Iran's 93 million citizens, who have a right to self-determination."
Like Lake, Javanmardi's legal authority to direct news coverage appears shaky.
He has been described on the network's airwaves as a senior adviser overseeing Voice of America's Persian, Kurdish and Afghan television services.
According to three colleagues who spoke on condition of anonymity, however, Javanmardi works for the U.S Agency for Global Media, not Voice of America. His email address has a USAGM domain. (The colleagues spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fears of retribution.)
As an employee of the parent agency, his involvement in news decisions could run afoul of the same firewall that critics say Lake ignored by appearing on Voice of America.
Javanmardi and USAGM did not respond to NPR's requests for comment or questions about his job or title.
Largely ignored by Lake, Congress moves to sustain international networks
In a rebuke of the Trump administration, House and Senate lawmakers have drafted spending bills that include $643 million for the U.S. Agency for Global Media for fiscal year 2026. The House passed its version of the legislation earlier this month.
While that amount is far less than what Congress allocated in the past, it is four times what the Trump administration had requested for the agency, funds that Lake intended to use to shut it down.
The lawmakers also set aside money for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. It has operated on a shoestring since Lake sought to cut off its funds. Like Voice of America Persian, its Persian-language service, called Radio Farda, is aimed at audiences inside Iran.
When authorities severed access to the Internet, the network's executives appealed to the U.S. Agency for Global Media to use their shortwave and mediumwave radio transmitters in Kuwait and elsewhere.
Lake has repeatedly condemned Radio Free Europe for broadcasting into Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has cracked down on the independent press. In June, when the U.S. bombed Iran and the Iranian regime blocked web access, she did not allow Radio Farda access to the transmitters.
In a posting on Facebook on Jan. 13, Lake said she and Radio Free Europe CEO Steve Capus agreed "we need to have a unified message so we are not sending mixed messages to the people of Iran." But she said Capus has not fulfilled his side of the bargain. (Capus and Radio Free Europe did not comment for this story.)
Radio Farda still has not been allowed to use the transmitters.
Her refusal has frustrated some influential lawmakers.
"It's been a week since the regime in Tehran blacked out the internet, and 10 months since USAGM blacked out its transmitters for Persian-language @RadioFarda_ from @RFERL," Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky tweeted on Jan 15. "What a waste of America's tremendous capacity to share the truth."
On a conservative commercial talk radio show last week, Lake called Radio Farda "a propaganda site run by Radio Free Europe."
NPR's Ayda Pourasad and D. Parvaz contributed to this story.
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