🔗 Share this article

The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who often attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; 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 viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating 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: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

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

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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