🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib 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 move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

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

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

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

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. 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 federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the government's aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently