Kim Perales<p>1st came the chaos: Trump’s purge of the fed bureaucracy. Next comes the retribution.</p><p>The purge is incomplete—the <a href="https://toad.social/tags/DOGE" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>DOGE</span></a> Service continues to seek cuts at more agencies, & litigation has slowed or blocked some of the cuts—but we seem to have already moved into the next stage: revenge.</p><p>Trump took one of his most chilling steps toward retribution last week, when he directed the govt to investigate two officials in his 1st admin.</p><p><a href="https://toad.social/tags/Coup" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Coup</span></a> <a href="https://toad.social/tags/Republicans" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Republicans</span></a> <a href="https://toad.social/tags/Resist" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Resist</span></a> <a href="https://toad.social/tags/April19" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>April19</span></a> <a href="https://toad.social/tags/USPol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>USPol</span></a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/04/trump-revenge-doge-government-layoffs-justice-department/682474/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theatlantic.com/newsletters/ar</span><span class="invisible">chive/2025/04/trump-revenge-doge-government-layoffs-justice-department/682474/</span></a></p>