"The swamp is winning the battle. And longtime campaign staffers are proving to be the first casualties."

From the State Department to the Environmental Protection Agency, a sharp dividing line has formed: Cabinet secretaries and their handpicked teams of GOP veterans are rushing to take power as Trump campaign staffers — “originals,” as they call themselves — gripe that they’re being pushed aside.

In over a dozen interviews, the originals, many of whom volunteered to work for candidate Trump when few others were willing to do so, complained that they’d been shut out of meetings and targeted with career-destroying leaks. In recent weeks, a number of longtime Trump supporters have abruptly quit, saying they felt the administration had been overtaken by the same establishment they worked to defeat…

“You’re always watching your back,” said Sid Bowdidge, a Trump campaign staffer who quit his Energy Department job after news reports that he made anti-Muslim slurs on social media, stories that he blamed on leaks by rival co-workers. “It doesn’t bode well for a cohesive team to be successful toward a common goal. How can you when people are looking over their shoulder to see if they have a knife in their back?”

“As we get further away from Inauguration Day, it is very obvious that no one cares what happens to the people who worked for the campaign or who have loyalty to the president. The swamp is winning the battle,” said one former Trump campaign aide. “And longtime campaign staffers are proving to be the first casualties.”