🔗 Share this article

The US President does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call last week was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument 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 people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

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

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