🔗 Share this article

The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

“The administration is observing at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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