🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The administration is observing at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats 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 court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently