Hannah Rosen

Feinberg decided to be an FBI agent after he was at his grandfather's 90th birthday and he overheard him talking to his younger brother.

Feinberg joined the FBI, and his career was a perfect example of what Frank discovered about the investment in human capital.

Legal training, lessons on how to interrogate people.

He went from speaking not a word of the language to being able to conduct interviews and interrogations.

For the government, the investments in Feinberg were paying off.

He was on a path to become the FBI's top Chinese counterintelligence investigator.

He'd already worked on high-profile cases.

The biggest one, which you might have heard of, was against the Chinese telecom company, Huawei.

The end for Feinberg came on May 31st in a way that's become a pattern for this administration, a loyalty test.

After the break, we talk to two more federal workers.

One reminds us of why the civil service existed in the first place, and the other of the civil service in its heyday.

That's after the break.

I'm Anne Applebaum.

Over the past year, as I watched Donald Trump demand unprecedented new powers, I wondered, don't he and his team fear that these same powers could one day be used by a different administration and a different president to achieve very different goals?

Well, maybe they are afraid.

And maybe that's why they're using their new tools to change our institutions, even to alter the playing field in advance of midterm elections later this year, to make sure their opponents can't win.

We could win, but we are very, very, very likely to lose if we keep treating this as business as usual.

reporting on the sweeping changes unfolding in our country and preparing you to think about what might happen next.

The new season of Autocracy in America, available now.

After the Civil War, the federal government's footprint expanded, and the civil service began to change.