I worked briefly for the federal government and realized that the bureaucratic system has two primary functions:

1. accumulate power

2. diffuse responsibility

Regarding the latter, occasionally the system build up too much responsibility which needs to be released to maintain stability. This is solved by picking an individual of power equal to the build up responsibility that needs to be released and punishing that individual by removal of all their individual power. Thus the overall system is restored to balance and only the individual, easily replaced, suffers.

It happened here, and I've seen it happen from the lowest to the highest levels of power in the government.