🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

“The government is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently