8. Media Agencies (USAGM, CPB) · Notable
Terminate the Open Technology Fund's grantee status
Printed page 238 8. Media Agencies (USAGM, CPB)
“Despite its vibrant self-lobbying and publicity efforts, OTF remains a wasteful and redundant boondoggle. Its grantee status was suspended by Trump-appointed USAGM leadership for a number of reasons, including noncompliance with its grant terms and for actions that resulted in several fraud and waste investigations.”
What has happened
- Blocked
The appeal is over and the injunction is permanent in practice: the government walked away from it. No stay of the 2025-11-25 injunction was ever sought in the D.C. Circuit. On 2026-03-16 OTF moved to dismiss the appeal; on 2026-04-09 the parties filed a joint stipulation of dismissal; and on 2026-04-15 the Clerk ordered "that the Clerk note on the docket that this case is dismissed", dismissed OTF's own motion as moot, and recorded that "no mandate will issue". Read the disposition, not the caption: a terminated appellate docket here means the government abandoned the appeal, not that the circuit decided anything. OTF's grantee status stands, and the order requiring USAGM to obligate and disburse its appropriated funds stands with it.
- Blocked
A second preliminary injunction, on the same reasoning, after USAGM again withheld appropriated funds; the court recorded that USAGM had approved disbursement of operating expenses only through November 2025 and that OTF faced "an existential funding crisis due to USAGM's wrongful withholding". USAGM appealed to the D.C. Circuit as No. 26-5031 on 2026-01-28. OTF remains a USAGM grantee and is listed as such on the agency's own structure page.
- Blocked
The district court granted OTF a preliminary injunction and ordered USAGM to obligate and disburse OTF's congressionally appropriated funds month by month through the rest of fiscal year 2025, with monthly compliance reports. (The 2025-04-22 injunction in the parallel Widakuswara case had expressly denied relief as to RFE/RL and OTF "in light of their current status"; this order is the one that reaches OTF.) OTF's grantee status is statutory — 22 U.S.C. 6208a makes it a grantee entity — and the court held USAGM may terminate its grant only for failure to comply with the statute.
- Attempted
USAGM, complying with Executive Order 14238, moved to eliminate its non-statutory components and functions "to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law", stating that the action would "impact the agency's workforce at USAGM, Voice of America, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and all Grantees". The Open Technology Fund is one of those grantees and its funding was cut off.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Resolved on 2026-09-03. The appellate record is readable after all: the free court filings for D.C. Cir. 26-5031 can be downloaded from CourtListener, even though the CourtListener docket page itself refused to open for us. The open question (“has the court of appeals stayed the November 2025 injunction?”) has an answer and it is no, and it never will: no stay was sought, and the appeal was dismissed on the parties’ own stipulation on 2026-04-15.
- The district court docket was walked directly: of entries 1 to 74 on the court’s public-document server (ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov), only 35 and 62 are released to the public, and both are the opinions cited above. Their dates come from a CourtListener search of court opinions for “Open Technology Fund”, because neither PDF carries an extractable signature date.
- usagm.gov/who-we-are/organizational-chart/ lists OTF among the grantee entities, alongside a new “Frontline Media Fund” not mentioned in the Mandate.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- Open Technology Fund (OTF)
- ID
- 616