🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

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 more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

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

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees 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 attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied 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 failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, 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 persist in reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts 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.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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