🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

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

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently