If there is an rm executable in the current directory, and also one later in your PATH, the second run might use a different rm that could do whatever it wants to
This is actually a likely scenario, as it is common to alias rm to rm -i. Though your bash config will still run after .bashrc is nuked, some might wrap with a script instead of aliasing (e.g., to send items to Trash).
if * expands to the rm binary itself, maybe.