The increasingly bitter dispute between NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has its trial date. On Thursday, US District Judge Randolph D. Moss ordered an expedited bench trial to determine whether CPB unlawfully retaliated against the network.
At issue on December 1 is NPR’s claim that CPB “acted to implement unconstitutional, viewpoint-based retaliation” after President Trump publicly called for the network’s defunding earlier this year. In a 49-page filing, NPR accuses CPB leadership of reversing a previously approved $36 million extension for NPR’s management of the Public Radio Satellite System based on political pressures from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
NPR contends that the reversal came “within 24 hours” of a meeting between CPB executives and OMB Associate Director Katharine Sullivan, who “expressed her intense dislike for NPR.” The network says CPB’s board soon entered “crisis mode,” rescinding the grant and shifting control to a new distribution coalition, Public Media Infrastructure, which received a $58 million award.
CPB, in an October 27 filing, urged the court to reject NPR’s request for an injunction, calling the claims “an over-caffeinated conspiracy theory at sharp odds with the record.” The agency said NPR “has no entitlement to any appropriated funds” and argued that the lawsuit “contradicts the express will of Congress.”
CPB maintains that the dispute stems from “longstanding concerns about NPR’s control” of the satellite system, not political interference, and says independent evaluator Deloitte found the rival proposal “superior in numerous respects.”
“Far from ‘currying favor’ with the Trump Administration, CPB has filed two lawsuits since March asserting that the Administration had acted illegally,” the agency wrote. NPR, however, insists the reversal “was anything but independent.”
The proceeding, expected to last three to four days, will be decided by Moss himself, without a jury.
