🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

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

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during social media attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks 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. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

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

“The administration is looking around at these successes and setbacks. 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 the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

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

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, 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 residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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