After digging a little deeper on the Holman Rule, my take is that it was re-activated as a way to be able to reduce the workforce, which was another promise that Trump made.
From an article I found:
>The Holman Rule has supported targeted job cuts, salary reductions at boards and agencies, headcount caps at agencies and caps on daily pay for certain contracting activities. It even was used in support of a failed 1916 bid to trim the entire federal workforce by 10 percent and extend the working day for those that remained. It's not clear if the rule was ever used to cut a specific individual's salary to an intolerable level, to pressure that employee to leave government service.
sauce https:// fcw.com/articles/2017/01/10/is-congress-really-going-to-cut-your-pay.aspx