🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, particularly from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

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 US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

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

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently