'Does not cut the mustard': Judge won't use Kari Lake's deposition to reveal 'justified' redactions in report on 'compliance' with Trump order

A federal judge denied NPR's bid to uncover redacted portions of a government report detailing compliance with President Donald Trump's executive order to shrink the U.S. Agency for Global Media down to its "statutory minimum."

Finding that NPR and its correspondent David Folkenflik's "evidence does not cut the mustard," U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden issued summary judgment in the Trump administration's favor on Friday, not seeing USAGM senior adviser Kari Lake's deposition testimony as a reason to order disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

"Because the redactions are justified under the deliberative process privilege and fulfill FOIA's other requirements, the Court will grant summary judgment for the agencies," the judge ruled.

McFadden, appointed to the bench during Trump's first term, pointed out that the "quarrel" was over "one document" and the government's invocation of FOIA Exemption 5, which shields "inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency."

The judge said that he reviewed the March 21, 2025, compliance report that gave rise to the lawsuit — in its unredacted form, in his chambers — and he concluded that the "deliberative process privilege applies."

More Law&Crime coverage: Judge uses Kari Lake deposition against her, points out she didn't even 'feign' compliance with the law

"As evidence, NPR points to deposition testimony in another case from Kari Lake, the Agency's senior adviser, who stated that 'the document reflected a 'recommendation guideline so that we can go forward and effectuate the continuing reduction of the federal bureaucracy executive order,'" McFadden wrote. "NPR also gestures toward a June 2025 Congressional Notification that 'described the same statutory minimum plan in granular detail.'"

But this "does not cut the mustard," the judge added, because "[n]either Lake's deposition testimony nor the Congressional Notification shows that the Agency carried out the Report's redacted proposals, let alone that the Agency expressly adopted the Report's recommendations."

In an attached order, McFadden noted his ruling is "final" and "appealable." Law&Crime reached out to NPR to ask if it intends to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Several months ago, another longtime federal judge in Washington, D.C., threatened to hold Lake in contempt unless the government revealed the so-called "Statutory Minimum Memorandum," blasting it as a "Hallmark production in bad faith." Lake's evasive answers about whether the Voice of America, under USAGM's purview, was functioning at the legal and statutory bare minimum mandated by Congress led that judge to order her deposition.