President Trump’s war with PBS escalated on Tuesday after a legal filing claimed that three top officials for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, all appointed by President Biden, were removed from their positions without notice and illegally.

The ousted officials — listed as plaintiffs in a court filing with the U.S. district court at Washington, D.C. as Tom Rothman, Diane Kaplan, and Laura Ross — sit on the board of directors of the corporation, a publicly-funded non-profit that distributes funding and programming to more than 1,400 locally owned PBS-TV stations and National Public Radio stations across the country.

The board members claim there was no reason given for their ouster in an email announcing the move from Trent Morse, the Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel for the Executive Office of the President.

“The Correspondence stated, in full: On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is terminated effective immediately,” the email said, according to the complaint. “Thank you for your service.” 

Attorneys for the three board members are attempting to make the case for wrongful termination, saying that Congress has long provided protections to “ensure that CPB was insulated from partisan governmental interference and control.” The lawyers say the corporation is not a federal agency subject to presidential authority and that its board members are not officers of the United States serving at the pleasure of the president.

Since back in the White House, Mr. Trump has called for an end to taxpayer funding of public media like PBS, NPR and other government-funded press outlets. In March he fired hundreds of employees at another public broadcaster, the Voice of America, a move later challenged in court.

Last week, a federal judge found Mr. Trump’s actions against the VOA to be unlawful and indefinitely paused any shuttering of the outlet. VOA’s parent, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, was ordered by  U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, to restore the service along with other news agencies under its umbrella such as Radio Free Europe and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. 

In the wake of his attempted dismantling of VOA, Mr. Trump said during remarks at the White House that he would not hesitate to cut off federal funding of both NPR and PBS. “I would love to do that,” he said. “I think it’s very unfair. It’s been very biased the whole group.”

His sentiments echo those of many conservative leaders who claimed that PBS and NPR are purveyors of “woke” programming and that there is less need for taxpayer-funded news in the current media landscape. “For far too long, federal taxpayers have been forced to fund biased news. This needs to come to an end, and now,” Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene said.

Earlier this month, reports surfaced that the Trump Administration had drafted a memo to Congress outlining a plan to end federal funding for public media which would rescind $1.1 billion — two years’ worth of funding for CPB.

Officials for NPR responded to the reports saying it would have a “devastating impact” on the network if federal funding was eliminated. “We serve the public interest. It’s not just in our name — it’s our mission,” NPR officials said in a statement posted on their website.