WASHINGTON — In his first week in office, President Donald Trump made clear that his promises to exact revenge on his perceived enemies were not empty campaign pledges — and that his retribution is intended not just to impose punishment for the past but also to intimidate anyone who might cross him in the future.

By removing security protections from former officials facing credible death threats, he signaled that he is willing to impose potentially profound consequences on anyone he sees as having been insufficiently loyal. That included his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who helped lead the pandemic response.

Trump’s decision to try to scale back civil service protections was aimed at culling federal employees he believes slowed or blocked his first-term agenda and replacing them with loyalists. That initiative, developed in Trump’s first term but never fully enacted, is intended to create a chilling effect so that career employees know they could be fired if they are not compliant, one senior aide said.

By ordering the Justice Department and intelligence agencies to begin scouring their ranks in a hunt for political bias, he started a process of dismissing or sidelining officials deemed to have participated in investigations he has sought to cast as “witch hunts” against him.

His decision to grant clemency to even the most violent Jan. 6 rioters and those convicted on sedition charges for plotting an assault on democracy freed top leaders of far-right groups. Shortly after being released, two of the most prominent of those leaders asserted, unrepentantly, that they wanted Trump to seek revenge on their behalf.

A week into Trump’s second presidency, it is difficult to assess what practical effect the flurry of actions will have on what he sees as a hostile establishment. For example, an executive order announcing investigations into the Justice Department and intelligence agencies to “ensure accountability for the previous administration’s weaponization of the federal government” is vague about what investigators are supposed to examine and about what the “remedial actions” the order calls for might look like.

But taken together, the moves send a clear signal that Trump feels unconstrained about punishing the disloyal, that he is potentially willing to go further against his enemies than he had pledged on the campaign trail and that there will be a price for any opposition to come.

In a statement, White House communications director Steven Cheung said Trump is keeping promises he made on the campaign trail: “As he has said consistently, the best retribution is the success of all Americans, and based on the historic actions he has taken in less than one week, the country is back on track.”

Trump’s steps included ordering government officials to report on efforts by their colleagues to promote diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

But perhaps the most blunt message came when the president stripped security details from several former officials who have faced death threats. It was a surprise move, one Trump had not indicated on the campaign trail that he was considering.

Fauci, whose advice and policies during the pandemic led to his being seen as a villain by many of the president’s supporters, lost his security protection. So did John Bolton, the national security adviser during part of Trump’s first term, and Pompeo, the former secretary of state. Bolton and Pompeo have been the targets of assassination plots by Iran for their involvement in counseling Trump as he decided to kill Iran’s top security and intelligence commander in 2020.

Like other U.S. national security officials who had been involved in similarly sensitive decisions, they were provided security based on threat assessments by the intelligence community.

But last week, Trump said they were not guaranteed security once leaving government and that they had all made enough money to pay for private security. He said he would feel no responsibility if they were to be harmed by adversaries.

Trump’s decision left officials like Bolton looking to find and fund their own protection.

“I think this is Trump’s style, beyond any question, and it’s what he really wants to do,” Bolton said in an interview Sunday. “Despite all the talk about looking forward, what he really wants to do is look back. But I’m not so sure that path is smooth.”

The security details decision was especially unsettling to some Republicans because at least two of the officials who had their security withdrawn — Pompeo and Brian Hook, who had been a special envoy on Iran policy — had done nothing to clearly oppose Trump.

Pompeo was slow to endorse him and gave some mild criticisms after the news broke in 2022 that Trump had held on to classified documents after leaving office. But Hook had committed no obvious offenses; he even volunteered his time to help on Trump’s transition team.

Republican lawmakers close to both men were left trying to find out what had happened.