Former directors of Voice of America nominated across party lines are pressing Congress to intervene to restore the broadcaster, after a judge said President Donald Trump’s shutdown violated the law.
In a letter to lawmakers, nine of the 10 former VOA directors who were alive as of last month asked Congress to “act quickly” to reverse Trump’s effort to end the eight-decade-old US-funded broadcaster.
“All these steps were made without consultation with Congress, which has voted repeatedly to support these networks and has had no hand in the plans to shut them down,” they wrote.
“At the same time, the orders amount to a gift to China, Iran, Russia and other oppressive regimes around the world.”
The signatories included Dick Carlson, the father of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, who has a close relationship with Trump.
The elder Carlson was VOA’s longest serving director, leading it from 1986 under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He died on March 24, after the letter was first put together.
Organizers publicly released the letter Wednesday after a federal judge issued a preliminary order to restore VOA, saying that the administration had no authority to cut so drastically the funding that was approved by Congress.
The administration is expected to appeal, and VOA has been shut down since mid-March.
David Ensor, who served as VOA’s director from 2011 to 2015 and led the letter, said that China and Russia have already been taking over signals used by VOA around the world.
He said that VOA could also have helped explain the US stance to Iranians as the Trump administration meets with Tehran on its nuclear program.
“We are hoping that — there don’t have to be very many — there will be a few Republicans who will come to the view that they want to reassert congressional authority and that they didn’t want to abolish Voice of America,” Ensor told AFP.
“Obviously, every week is more damage, so we have a very urgent sense that we’d like to see Voice of America get back to work again.”
Trump has questioned why Voice of America is not promoting the administration’s viewpoint, bristling at the editorial “firewall” that let the network operate independently.
