President Donald Trump cautioned Democrats weeks ago that a government shutdown could result in mass layoffs of federal workers, and his administration has now begun to follow through on that warning.

Amid reports that thousands of workers have already been fired came the news that an entire entity within the Treasury Department has been eliminated, according to the Daily Caller.

That entity, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, was ostensibly working to help provide economic opportunities for underserved communities, but critics assert that it was actually being used to help finance and promote various aspects of the "woke" leftist agenda.

Entire staff laid off

On Friday, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought announced that, as had been previously warned ahead of the October 1 shutdown, the RIFs, or Reductions-in-Force, had begun.

Included among the RIFs, an unnamed administration confirmed to the Daily Caller, was the entire staff of the CDFI Fund, which reportedly employed around 102 full-time staff members.

Notably, the layoffs shouldn't have come as a complete surprise, as the CDFI Fund had been specifically named in an executive order in March from President Trump that called for it, along with a half-dozen other bureaucratic entities, to be either "eliminated to the maximum extent" or reduced to a "minimum presence and function."

Hijacked to serve the leftist policy agenda

At the time of President Trump's order in March, Politico reported on a bipartisan outcry from lawmakers on Capitol Hill in opposition to the move, as it was believed that the CDFI Fund served as a financial "lifeline" to support entrepreneurs and small businesses in typically poor urban and rural communities.

Indeed, created in bipartisan fashion in 1994, the CDFI Fund's stated mission is to "expand economic opportunity for underserved people and communities by supporting the growth and capacity of a national network of community development lenders, investors, and financial service providers."

While that certainly sounds laudable enough, that wasn't the only thing the Fund has been doing over the past decades, according to critics who highlighted how much it had strayed from its statutory purpose.

Instead, per the Center for Renewing America, the CDFI Fund has been funneling tens of millions, if not billions, of taxpayer dollars into a wide range of leftist policy priorities, including "diversity, equity, and inclusion" initiatives, critical race theory and "anti-racism" programs, anti-capitalism and "anti-colonialism" organizations, transgender services, climate change nonsense, and support for illegal immigration, among other things.

"Far-left ideologues have thoroughly corrupted the CDFI Fund. It now serves as a vehicle providing taxpayer support for woke initiatives from the Green New Deal and DEI to CRT/anti-racism and gender ideology," the Center concluded. "President Trump’s EO limiting the functions of this entity and others is an effort to neuter the woke and weaponized bureaucracy."

Treasury confirms layoffs were "necessary" to abolish the CDFI Fund

Of course, none of what had been pointed out in March by the Center for Renewing America about the waywardness of the CDFI Fund was mentioned in an alarm-raising article from CUToday, which covers news related to credit unions and other financial institutions.

Rather, that piece lamented the gutting of the CDFI Fund and warned of the potential financial consequences to the countless communities it purportedly served nationwide, including various low-income, rural, and military communities.

However, a spokesperson for the Treasury Department confirmed that the elimination of the entire staff was "necessary to implement the abolishment of the CDFI, which is based upon the Department of the Treasury determination that its programs, projects, and activities do not align with the President’s priorities."