🔗 Share this article

The US President is not typically known for guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

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

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as 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 “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both 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 government's aims, the expert said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently