WASHINGTON — The federal media agency that oversees Voice of America, and whose Trump-appointed leadership has been deemed illegal by a judge, failed to cooperate with a required annual audit of its finances, according to a newly released report.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media had consecutively received clean audit reports for 20 years until 2024. But then Kari Lake was named by President Donald Trump to take the helm, vowing to shut down federally funded newsrooms that she accused of being anti-American and “rotten.”

The audit report by an independent accounting firm dated Feb. 27 said the agency failed to provide information required for a proper examination for 2025. The report says the omission of documents was so “material and pervasive” that the firm, Kearney and Co., declined to express an opinion on the agency’s financial numbers. In accounting, such audit reports, called disclaimed opinions, often signal that the management has imposed limits on auditors’ work.

The report was another sign of turmoil at the agency under Lake, a fierce Trump ally.

Nearly all of the 1,400 journalists and support workers at Voice of America had been laid off last year, sparing a couple of dozen staff members. A judge ruled last week that Lake’s appointment as acting head had been invalid and illegal, effectively voiding layoffs, funding cuts and contract terminations at the news agencies. Lake has said she will appeal the ruling.

The news groups Lake oversees, which include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in addition to Voice of America, broadcast to countries with limited press freedoms including Russia, China and Iran. They had to significantly scale back their news operations after facing Lake’s intense push to close them down.

Their diminished service evoked deep concerns from bipartisan members of Congress, who believed the cuts could allow U.S. adversaries to saturate audiences with disinformation. Their objection, coupled with U.S. attacks on Iran last June and court rulings, had prompted a restart of Voice of America’s broadcasting. VOA now provides round-the-clock coverage in Persian after the United States conducted airstrikes in Iran and killed its key leaders.

The auditors’ report now raises questions about how the agency under Lake was handling its nearly $1 billion budget.

The report “paints a picture of an agency completely flying blind,” said Grant Turner, a former CEO at the global media agency during Trump’s first term. “It looks like complete and utter dereliction of duty in managing taxpayer dollars.”

He added, “This is not just incompetence — it is criminality.”

A separate financial report from the agency dated Feb. 27 also fails to provide any breakdown of more than $800 million it spent in the 2025 fiscal year, listing all expenses in a single line named “total gross costs.”

The global media agency denied that it had blocked auditors from doing their work and said in a statement that the audit team did not have enough time to conduct a full review and issue findings, and pledged that it would do so for the current year. Lake did not address The New York Times’ questions on the audit report, but blamed the federal judge who blocked her efforts to close down the agency and to fire its employees for continued expenses that her organization was incurring.

“Judicial overreach is the only roadblock here,” she said, responding to a question on her stalled attempts to lay off Voice of America reporters.

The auditors also noted the agency failed to put internal safeguards in place to ensure its own numbers were accurate. Lake said in a letter attached to the financial report that significant cuts at the agency kept it from performing mandated internal reviews, citing “staffing limitations.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Minho Kim/Anna Rose Layden
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