🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

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

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm methods used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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