Every administration faces post-presidency criticism from former employees. But it’s safe to say that no administration has been the subject of as much criticism as Trump’s.

In the new book Betrayal: The Final Act Of The Trump Show, reporter Jonathan Karl’s interviews with former Trump aides paint a picture of an environment completely free of dissent — on penalty of dismissal. Karl writes that the purge of anyone who disagreed with Trump was akin to Nazi Germany’s Gestapo, the secret police.

The book has not been released yet, but an excerpt was published in Tuesday’s The Atlantic with the story.

In one instance, a staffer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development was scrutinized for having clicked “like” on an Instagram post by singer Taylor Swift. The offending post showed the artist with the word “VOTE” printed across the picture. But swiping to the second picture in the post revealed a Biden-Harris logo.

The Presidential Personnel Office, responsible for weeding out disloyal employees, had essentially no other duties.

As the title of the book hints at, this purge was at its peak during the last year of Trump’s presidency. During that time, Karl writes, the Office was turned into “an internal police force, obsessively monitoring administration officials for any sign of dissent, purging those who were deemed insufficiently devoted to Trump and frightening others into silence.”

All of this from an administration seemingly obsessed with freedom of speech, to the point that Trump has sued social media platforms for disallowing his posts.

But what backfired about the purge policy from the PPO was the fact that by getting rid of anyone with any hint of differing opinions than the president, they effectively created an echo chamber. That led to there being zero pushback against Trump’s proclivity for outbursts and outlandish behavior.

One might say it led directly to his impeachment.

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