Reversing course, the Trump administration on Thursday restored funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a federally financed news organization born out of American efforts to counter Soviet propaganda during the Cold War.
The decision to again support the news group, known as RFE/RL, came two days after a federal judge in Washington temporarily blocked President Trump’s push to close it down, saying Mr. Trump cannot unilaterally dismantle the news organization established by Congress.
Also Thursday, the administration reinstated 33 employees at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, a federal news outlet critical of the island’s communist government, allowing the radio station’s programming to resume.
On March 15, the administration terminated all grants for RFE/RL in a one-page letter, citing Mr. Trump’s executive order a day earlier aimed at eliminating RFE/RL’s parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
On Thursday, the administration claimed that the lawsuit was moot — since the funding was restored — rather than continuing to argue for the legitimacy of its March 15 decision to cut funding while complying with the judge’s order.
The Trump administration still reserved the right to terminate the RFE/RL’s financing “at a later date” if it “were to determine that such termination was appropriate,” according to the administration’s letter to RFE/RL that was submitted to the court.