Only one of the top five senior press and communications staffers, Raj Shah, was in the office on Friday afternoon, hours after the president decided to emerge from his post-Singapore sequester for an impromptu 20-minute gaggle on the White House lawn…

Other aides, many of them veterans of the Trump campaign, have been fired, sent to agencies or nudged to look for other employment, or have simply left for more lucrative, less stressful jobs. At least two additional staffers are expected to leave in the coming weeks, according to administration officials and Republicans close to the White House.

To avoid giving the appearance that staffers are being purged en masse, and possibly attracting negative headlines, senior officials have tried to ensure people leave one by one. Officials also hope to avoid giving the appearance that anyone in particular is being targeted for leaking, though Trump’s own irritation with news stories about the inner drama of his West Wing set off the latest round of housecleaning.