🔗 Share this article

The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to praise and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

“The administration is observing at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

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

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently