Install effective acting USAGM leadership pending CEO confirmation

Blocked

Printed page 245 8. Media Agencies (USAGM, CPB)

“For example, the years-long delay in confirming the Trump-appointed CEO left disastrous holdover leadership from the previous Administration. Employing effective leadership, even in an acting capacity, while a new CEO is awaiting Senate confirmation is necessary to prevent a repeat of this behavior.”

What has happened

May 14, 2026 Blocked
Still blocked, and the holding is now undisturbed twice over. The government moved for reconsideration of the ratification limb of the March 7 ruling; on 2026-05-14 the district court denied it, holding that "the creation of a 'de facto' acting officer through 'broad delegat[ion]' of 95 percent of the acting CEO's responsibilities makes nonsense of Congress's carefully crafted statutory scheme" and that the Vacancies Act's exclusivity provisions supply "evidence of a contrary congressional intent" against the government's alternative delegation theory. The consolidated D.C. Circuit appeal has **not** reached the acting-CEO holding: its order of 2026-03-31 stayed the district court's March 17 orders only "to the extent that they require that 'all employees placed on administrative leave pursuant to defendants' March 2025 directive shall return to work'", denied the motions to dismiss, expressly reached no merits, and set a briefing schedule. A stay is a scope question, and this one reached one clause.
- Order, Widakuswara v. Lake, No. 1:25-cv-01015 (D.D.C. May 14, 2026) — the government's motion for reconsideration of the Vacancies Act ruling is DENIED
  Primary Courts May 14, 2026
Mar 7, 2026 Blocked
The district court held that "the Vacancies Act and the Appointments Clause prohibit her de jure or de facto service as acting CEO", finding that the delegations to her — including the authority to determine the addition or deletion of language services, to make and supervise broadcasting grants, and to allocate appropriated money among USAGM's elements — "were an unlawful effort to transform Lake into the CEO of U.S. Agency for Global Media in all but name". Under 5 U.S.C. 3348(d) her actions in that capacity have no force or effect and cannot be ratified. The arrangement the Quote asks for is in place and legally barred.
- Widakuswara v. Lake (D.D.C. 1:25-cv-1015), memorandum opinion on the Appointments Clause and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act
  Primary Courts Mar 7, 2026
Nov 21, 2025 Partially done
By this date USAGM identified Lake as its Deputy Chief Executive Officer, quoting her in that title in an agency press release, and she issued the agency's National Security Policy as a CEO Policy Memo on 2025-12-23. Leadership in an acting capacity was therefore in place while a CEO awaited confirmation — the second nominee, Sarah B. Rogers, was still before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which held hearings on 2026-07-30.
- USAGM: U.S. Agency for Global Media Clamps Down on Grantee Rogue Behavior
  Primary Executive branch Nov 21, 2025
- USAGM CEO Policy Memo: Policy on Use of November 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States of America
  Primary Executive branch Dec 23, 2025
Mar 15, 2025 Attempted
A presidentially designated Senior Adviser, Kari Lake, was installed at USAGM and exercised agency-level decisions from 2025-03-15, canceling the agency's headquarters lease and implementing Executive Order 14238. Acting leadership of a kind, but not the CEO's office and with no confirmed CEO in prospect: the President's first nominee for Chief Executive Officer had his nomination withdrawn on 2025-03-24.
- USAGM: Senior Adviser Kari Lake enforces the executive order to downsize the agency
  Primary Executive branch Mar 15, 2025

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

An appointment ask, checked first against our record of who holds which office: it shows no current USAGM office for anyone, so the finding comes from the agency’s own releases.
The nomination record is among the Senate nominations we keep from congress.gov: Leo Brent Bozell III (119-PN26), withdrawn 2025-03-24, and Sarah B. Rogers (119-PN874), hearings held 2026-07-30 and not confirmed. Their congress.gov pages refused to open for us and are leads only.
Question answered on 2026-09-03: has the consolidated D.C. Circuit appeal (Nos. 26-5086, 26-5087) resolved the acting-CEO holding? It has not. The circuit’s per curiam order of 2026-03-31 (Henderson, Wilkins and Katsas, JJ.) was read in full at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.42958/gov.uscourts.cadc.42958.01208836177.0.pdf: it consolidates Nos. 25-5144, 25-5145, 26-5086 and 26-5087, denies the motions to dismiss, grants a stay pending appeal confined to the return-to-work clause, dismisses the administrative-stay motions as moot and orders a briefing schedule. Nothing else was stayed and no merits were reached.
The district docket after entry 223: a read of 2026-09-02 walked it to entry 261 and found that it holds the notice of appeal and motion for partial stay (2026-03-19), the district court’s denial of that partial stay (2026-03-20), the denial of reconsideration (2026-05-14), fortnightly status reports through 2026-08-27 and a motion hearing set for 2026-09-04, and that none of them disturbs the holding. Of those, the two dispositive documents were re-read in full on 2026-09-03 — the March 7 memorandum opinion at https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2025cv1015-219 and the May 14 order at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.279211/gov.uscourts.dcd.279211.241.0.pdf. The remaining entries are reported, not cited.

Action: appoint
Object: Acting USAGM leadership pending Senate confirmation of a CEO
ID: 634