🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

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 one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

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

In 2021, right after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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