🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows 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.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, right after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine 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 public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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