🔗 Share this article

The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

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

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe 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.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently