In March, the Trump administration placed on administrative leave all full-time employees at the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Network—and that was just for starters. The administration also ordered funding cuts at the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) which oversees the government networks, and in effect called for the agency’s elimination.

In April U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Trump administration to rehire all employees at the government media outlets and ordered Congress to restore funding. The judge’s actions prompted a response from Michael Pack, CEO of USAGM during the first Trump administration.

“Early on in my tenure, the VOA Urdu service, which broadcasts to Pakistan, ran an English-language video that was little more than a Biden campaign ad,” Pack wrote. “Likely intended to be seen by Michigan voters, the video featured President Biden asking for the votes of Muslims.” This was not the first case of political bias in the government network, whose charter requires accuracy, objectivity, and a comprehensive approach.

“During the 2016 campaign,” Pack recalls, “VOA’s Ukrainian service ran Robert De Niro’s infamous ad insulting Mr. Trump, calling him a punk, a dog and a pig and saying, ‘I’d like to punch him in the face.’” VOA bosses couldn’t deny that the video “violated the charter as well as basic journalism standards” and took it down “under pressure.”

Pack launched a formal review process that recommended firing the contractors responsible for the video, and giving VOA managers a few days of leave without pay. Senior officials, never previously held to account, “sued the agency for violating their First Amendment rights, even though they were working for the government and had violated the VOA charter.” Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the VOA bosses.

“My effort at reform failed,” Pack explained, and “such stories from my brief eight months there are legion.” Pack battled lawsuits from bureaucrats, supported by “members of Congress, biased judges and a media willing to distort the truth.” Any new team Trump brings in “would face the same organized coalition of forces, inside and outside the agency, ready to fight any reform, with the bureaucrats planning to outlast them.”

Despite the inherent bias and disagreements on the mission, Pack believes there is still

an important role for international broadcasting but “first, we have to tear it down. Then we can rebuild it from the ground up for the modern era.” Judge Royce Lamberth, 81, first appointed to the district in 1987, isn’t going for it. Neither is the Obama-appointed Judge Beryl Howell, who ascended to her perch in 2010. Both judges usurped legislative and executive functions, and their actions are hardly isolated.

The president of the United States is the only official elected by all the people. On March 25, President Trump issue an executive order “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” requiring that voters produce “documentary proof of United States citizenship,” as election law requires. Enter federal judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, 82, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a 1997 appointee of President Bill Clinton. In late April Kollar-Kotelly blocked portions of the executive order requiring documentation of citizenship for voting. Consider also federal judge Julie Ruben, a 2022 appointee of Joe Biden.

In March, Ruben ordered the Trump administration to reinstate Department of Education grants promoting DEI initiatives. In similar style, the Biden judge Myong Joun of the Massachusetts District Court ordered the Trump administration to restore DEI teacher training grants.

President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has attempted to shut down waste, fraud, and abuse at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a major funder of radical leftist groups. In March, Obama judge Theodore Chuang ordered DOGE to restore access to USAID employees and pause any efforts to shut down the federal agency.

In January, President Trump issued the executive order “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which “cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies” such as “radical gender ideology.” Enter the Biden-appointed judge Ana Reyes, billed as “the first Hispanic woman and first openly LGBTQ person” ever to serve on the D.C. Circuit Court. Biden evidently considered that a job qualification and in March Reyes blocked Trump’s order on military readiness. In effect, Reyes appointed herself Secretary of Defense, but that falls short of what the Obama-appointed Judge James Boasberg of the D.C. Circuit has done.

As presiding judge of the FISA court, a belch from the Carter Era, Boasberg greenlighted the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” covert operation against candidate and President Trump. Boasberg then moved to the D.C. Circuit to handle the case of Kevin Clinesmith, who served as assistant general counsel in the National Security and Cyber Law branch of the FBI’s Office of General Counsel. Clinesmith altered an email for the purpose of exposing former Trump campaign aide Carter Page to surveillance under FISA. The FBI forger faced five years in prison but Boasberg let him off with probation and community service. That’s a tough act to follow but Boasberg is up to the task.

The FISA vet recently ordered deportation flights of Venezuelan criminal illegals to turn around and return to the United States, effectively appointing himself president, secretary of state, and head of the Federal Aviation Administration. Like Lamberth, Howell, Reyes, and the others, Boasberg was not elected by the people, yet he countermands the orders of the person who was.

Call it black robe supremacy, and the dogma lives loudly within him. Other judges also believe they are somehow above the law.

Consider New Mexico judge Jose Luis Cano, also known as “Joel.”

Judge Cano and wife Nancy harbored a Venezuelan gang member, linked to human trafficking and other crimes and who were illegally in the United States. While sheltered by the Canos, the criminal posed for photos with military-style firearms, which he was not allowed under law to possess. Judge Cano and wife have now been arrested, and so has Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan, who shielded a criminal illegal from federal agents. As a California case confirms this is a serious crime.

On Dec. 26, 2018, Mexican national Paulo Virgen Mendoza, who was also illegally in the U.S., gunned down police officer Ronil Singh, a legal immigrant from Fiji who came to the United States and went on to become a police officer. The shooter’s brother Conrado Mendoza and friend Erik Quiroz Razo, both illegals, helped the cop-killer flee. Quiroz and Mendoza were sentenced to 27 and 21 months in federal prison. Singh’s wife Anamika thought the punishment was too lenient. If crime victims thought that Judge Dugan deserves a stiffer sentence it would be hard to blame them. As the Cano and Dugan cases play out, Congress has plenty to ponder.

Boasberg’s appointment of himself as president drew calls for his impeachment from President Trump. Chief Justice John Roberts shot back that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.” As the people should know, it was Roberts who in 2014 appointed Boasberg to the FISA court, where judges are not subject to a public confirmation process.

A secret court that represents only the government has no place in a constitutional republic. If the rule of law is to prevail, FISA has to go. Impeachment is an appropriate response for judges who usurp legislative and executive functions. Congress could also look to limit or eliminate judicial districts such as the D.C. Circuit, but there’s more to it.

Judges who harbor and protect criminals should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Remember Ronil Singh and those who helped his killer escape. In 2025 and moving forward, the struggle of the people against black robe supremacy is the struggle of memory against forgetting.