🔗 Share this article

The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's recent remarks occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi 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 judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats 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.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently