🔗 Share this article

The US President is not typically known for advice, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

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

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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